A new origin story: A bold new explanation of how Earth got its Moon

Scientists across the world have always been puzzled about how the Moon formed and what led to the conditions of its evolution. While one of the prominent theories is that the Moon formed due to a collision between the early Earth and the protoplanet Theia, researchers from the University of Gottingen and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have now revealed it could have formed from material ejected from the Earth's mantle. If this were the case, Theia would be part of the Earth's core today, and the Moon would have formed from ejected material from the Earth's mantle. This would explain the similarity in the composition of the Earth and the Moon,” Professor Andreas Pack, Managing Director of Gottingen University’s Geoscience Centre and Head of the Geochemistry and Isotope Geology Division said. A widely held theory suggests that water arrived at Earth after the Moon formed, during a series of impacts known as the “Late Veneer Event.” Since Earth experienced these impacts far more frequently than the Moon, there should be detectable differences in oxygen isotopes, reflecting the origin of the impacting material.