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See How The Moon Could Have Been Created In a Handful of Hours
Not hundreds or thousands of years
The moon has a very similar composition to the Earth. The crust of the Earth and the moon are so similar that for decades scientists have concluded that the moon must have been spawned from the Earth at one point in time. The leading theory suggests that a rogue body flying through the solar system 4.5 billion years ago collided with the Earth and practically liquified it. The collision caused the two bodies to spew millions of tons of dust, ash, and liquid rock into space. Gravity then takes over and forms the moon out of this molten halo.
Scientists long theorized that this process could have taken hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. As the material began to cool and coalesce, the moon and the Earth would have slowly regained their forms. The debate is about how slowly this process would take.
Even the fastest theories put the moon at being created in dozens, if not hundreds, of years. Now, a new study based on a series of extremely detailed computer simulations puts that number in just hours, not years. And definitely not thousands of years.
According to the models, the moon could have split off, reformed, and started to cool in less than a single day. That is incredible.
