Scientist Sergei Ipatov proposed his version of the growth of the Moon

at the dawn of its existence, our satellite was a small “embryo”

At the dawn of its existence, the Moon was a small “embryo”, orders of magnitude smaller than its current size. Then it became overgrown with matter, which was ejected from the Earth until it reached its modern mass of 1/80 of the Earth’s. So says Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, leading researcher at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics and Mathematical Modeling of Natural Processes at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry named after. IN AND. Vernadsky RAS (GEOKHI) Sergey IPATOV. The results of his research were recently published in the journal Solar System Research. The author of the article agreed to explain to MK readers how the new version came about.

Photo: nasa.gov

There are three common theories about the origin of the Moon. The first says that the Moon was formed as a result of a mega-impact — an impact by a planet the size of Mars on the Earth, as a result of which a significant fragment broke off from the Earth, which became its natural satellite.

According to another version (followed by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Eric Galimov), the Earth and the Moon were formed simultaneously from one rarefied condensation, and the Moon was immediately formed entirely.

The third version — multi-impact — states that the Moon could have formed gradually as a result of the ejection of Earth's matter under the influence of not one, but many collisions of cosmic bodies with it. There are theoretical works that suggest that there were about 20 of them.

As Sergei Ipatov reported, he has his own hypothesis: the Moon was formed together with the Earth from a rarefied condensation (according to Galimov), but not entirely, but in the form of an embryo, and only later grew to its present size as a result of the ejection of terrestrial meteorites in its direction (according to multi-impact theory).

– It could weigh 1-2 orders of magnitude less than the current full Moon, which is 1/80 the mass of the Earth. The diameter of the Moon, which is now 3.5 thousand kilometers, could also be much smaller — from 700 to 1.7 thousand kilometers.

At the same time, it was much closer to the Earth than today, at about a distance 20 thousand kilometers (now the distance from the Earth to the Moon is 380 thousand km. — Author).

— The active “bombardment” of the Earth (and, accordingly, our small satellite) was about 700 million years after its formation, during which the “growing” Moon gradually moved away from our planet into its modern orbit. The Moon could not immediately fly to the distance where it is now. By the way, it still continues to move away from the Earth several centimeters per year under the influence of tidal forces.