Age of our Moon

[Rosemary]

This article was in The Western Australian newspaper -

"In Germany, scientists believe they have found the time when the Moon was created by a Mars-sized object smashing into the Earth. The research, reported in the journal Science, indicated that the impact occurred about 30 million years after the Earth's formation, just over 4.5 billion years ago. According to the Giant Impact hypothesis, a collision hurled debris into space that coalesced under gravity to form the Moon".

 

[Brian G Turner]

The formation of the moon is a really interesting issue - the collision theory is interesting, but somehow I don't think we've seen the last of this story.

 

[dreamwalker]

I find it unbelievible that the earth was in a stable orbit, and continue to be in a stable orbit after a mars sized planet (which would have to be have been in an unstable orbit) collides with it.

But that doesn't stop me liking the idea.

 

[HieroGlyph]

Fact is the Moon is receeding from the Earth and it might be quite astonishing to think that it is presently at a distance to magnificently eclipse our Sun. The Moon is in an elliptical orbit giving us Total and Annular eclipses... But as a species we shouldnt read any significance into this.

Extrapolating back in time with the Moons rate of receeding brings it all the way to the surface of our planet - scientists and geologists working on their theries, examining rock types and rock histories come up with the above theory that there was a major collision near after the formation of the Earth.
I remember trying to figure out the energy dissipated by the Moons tug on our oceans... Takes a lot of energy to drag our seas up and down our coasts. I leave that to the smart ones, and trust in their peer reviewed theories.