The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.ĭuring this massive collision, nearly all of Earth and Theia melted and reformed as one body, with a small part of the new mass spinning off to become the Moon as we know it. This proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of the planet Mars. The giant-impact theory is most widely accepted today.The fission theory suggests Earth had been spinning so fast that some material broke away and began to orbit the planet.The accretion hypothesis proposes that the Moon was created along with Earth at its formation.Capture theory suggests that the Moon was a wandering body (like an asteroid ) that formed elsewhere in the solar system and was captured by Earth's gravity as it passed nearby.The evidence returned from these missions gave us today's most widely accepted theory. Prior to the Apollo mission research there were three theories about how the Moon formed. 'There used to be a number of theories about how the Moon was made and it was one of the aims of the Apollo program to figure out how we got to have our Moon,' says Sara. Analysis of samples brought back from the NASA Apollo missions suggest that the Earth and Moon are a result of a giant impact between an early proto-planet and an astronomical body called Theia.
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