Density of the Moon and Nucleation of Planets

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THERE have been many attempts to explain the low density of the Moon and the absence, or very small size, of a heavy core; the hypotheses have been reviewed and their difficulties discussed by Urey1. There is, however, a simple possibility that has not been exploited so far. It arises from the circumstance that iron is plastic-ductile even at low temperatures, provided that it does not contain far more carbon than has been found in meteorites. If it is assumed that the planets have agglomerated from solid particles condensed from a gas atmosphere around the Sun, metallic particles would be expected to stick together when they collide because they can absorb kinetic energy, up to a limit, by plastic deformation. They can therefore unite by ``cold welding'' or by hot welding. Silicates, on the other hand, are brittle and break up in a collision except within a narrow temperature range near the melting point. The agglomeration of the planets should then start with metallic particles. An additional factor may be that the heavy metals are the first components to condense from a gas cloud2.

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