Astronomy › Section H · The Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars › Topic H.3
The origin of the Moon
Where did the Moon come from? It is one of the best-studied objects in the sky, yet its birth is still argued over. Seeing how scientists test competing ideas against the evidence is as valuable as the answer itself.
In this topic
- A puzzle with plenty of clues
- What any theory must explain
- Worked example: how big is our Moon?
- Three older ideas
- Why they fail
- The giant impact hypothesis
- What the collision explains
- Worked example: scoring the hypotheses
- What is still debated
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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