Disruptive theory changes what we know about the moon! (video)

According to one simulation powerful supercomputerThe the moon It may have formed within a few hours, due to a catastrophic collision that separated a piece of it. a land And he threw it into space, upending what we thought until now!

Beginning in the mid-1970s, astronomers thought that the Moon may have formed after a collision between Earth and an ancient protoplanet called Theia.Name taken from the titans of Greek mythology), which had a size similar to that of Mars. This massive collision could have resulted in a massive debris field from which scientists thought Earth’s natural satellite slowly formed over thousands of years.

Now, however, a group of scientists is coming to change the facts, with a study published on October 4 in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. Their new disruptive theory suggests that the creation of the Moon was not a slow process of thousands of years, but What happened in a few hours. Remarkably, the new theory is based on a powerful computer simulation, which performs calculations on a given topic with greater precision than ever before.

In particular, to explore the different possible scenarios for moon formation after the Earth collides with the planet Theia, the authors of the new study used a simulation program called SPH with Interconnected Micro-tasks (SWIFT). This is specifically designed to simulate the complex and ever-changing web of fluid dynamics and gravitational forces acting on large amounts of matter. As expected, running this program is not an easy task, which is why the scientists used the supercomputer nicknamed COSMA (short for “Cosmology Machine”) located at Durham University in the UK.

By using COSMA to simulate hundreds of potential collisions between Earth and Theia, at different angles, rotations and speeds, the scientists were able to model the impacts of the collision with ever higher accuracy. Accuracy in this simulation is determined by the number of particles the algorithm uses. According to the aforementioned university professor, Jacob Kegres, for giant colliders, the accuracy of a typical simulation is usually between 100,000 and 1 million particles. However, in this new study he and his colleagues were able to simulate up to 100 million particles!

It was this high-resolution simulation that led researchers to theorize that the moon formed within hours of ejected chunks of land and the remnants of Theia, an “elegant” answer that explains several characteristics of the moon, such as its breadth and tilt. orbit, with its partially molten interior and thin crust.

Of course, researchers will have to examine samples of rocks and dust dug deep in the moon’s surface before they can confirm this theory. So here’s where it sticks. NASA’s Artemis mission Which is expected to bring the necessary samples to scientists for such various studies.

In fact, research like this could also shed more light on how the Earth got the shape we know it and how it became a planet that harbors life.

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