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Moon and Earth Formed out of Identical Material

October 11, 2001

According to the �Giant Impact� theory the moon was formed by a collision between a proto-earth and a smaller planet. In the October 12 issue of Science, ETH researchers present results showing that the composition of the oxygen isotopes of the moon and the earth are identical. This is a strong indication that the proto-earth and the planet with which it collided were formed from an identical mixture of components and that they orbited the sun at similar distances.

The results, presented by researchers from the ETH Zurich, are based on their analysis of the composition of oxygen isotopes extracted from 31 lunar rock samples, brought back to earth by various Apollo missions. Their analysis was carried out by means of a so-called laser fluorination technique, a new high-precision method. Isotopes are atoms of the same element but with different mass. Because the relative amounts of the different isotopes of oxygen are not distributed regularly throughout the solar system, knowledge of their composition can be used to ascertain where in the solar system the rocks originated. If the composition of two bodies, such as the earth and the moon, are identical they were formed at equal distances to the sun.

The �Giant Impact� theory is widely accepted today in scientific circles. According to this theory, around 50 million years after the birth of the solar system, a planet, roughly the size of Mars - called Theia - collided with the earth and the moon was formed from the debris caused by this collision. As the results now show the oxygen isotopes of the moon and the earth are identical. Proto-earth and Theia were formed from an identical mixture of material and probably orbited the sun at similar distances.

ETH Zuerich

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