Formation of The Earth Impactor and Moon

Details Formation of The Earth Impactor and Moon Formation of The Earth Impactor and Moon

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dda....39.1201b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #39, #12.01

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Scientific paper

The current standard theory of the origin of the Moon is that the Earth was hit by a giant impactor the size of Mars causing ejection of iron poor impactor mantle debris that coalesced to form the Moon. But where did this Mars-sized impactor come from? Isotopic evidence suggests that it came from 1AU radius in the solar nebula and computer simulations are consistent with it approaching Earth on a zero-energy parabolic trajectory. But how could such a large object form in the disk of planetesimals at 1AU without colliding with the Earth early-on before having a chance to grow large or before its or the Earth's iron core had formed? We propose that the giant impactor could have formed in a stable orbit among debris at the Earth's Lagrange point L4 (or L5). We show such a configuration is stable, even for a Mars-sized impactor. It could grow gradually by accretion at L4 (or L5), but eventually gravitational interactions with other growing planetesimals could kick it out into a chaotic creeping orbit which we show would likely cause it to hit the Earth on a zero-energy parabolic trajectory. This paper argues that this scenario is possible and should be further studied.

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