Before the advent of the Moon, our planet had to survive many
disasters, which led to the emergence of unstable and short-lived
satellites.
Of all the versions of the origin of the moon, the greatest authority
is exercised by the impact hypothesis. According to her, the satellite
was formed as a result of a collision of the young Earth with another
protoplanet – from a mixed substance of both bodies thrown into orbit.
It is unlikely that such a catastrophe was the only one: in that
troubled era, the Earth must have experienced such blows many times.
What happened to the “protossplants”, which probably appeared as a
result of this?
This article is devoted to an article published by Israeli and
European astronomers in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society. The authors simulated the shock formation of a
multitude of “protosatellites” and their gravitational interactions with
the planet and with each other. Calculations showed that such chaotic
interactions lead to their merging into larger bodies, and then either
to ejection beyond the limits of the near-earth orbit or to a final drop
to the surface of the planet.
Such a “lunopad” could have great significance for terrestrial
geology and the entire evolution of the planet. Of course, the immediate
traces of clashes that took place in the Katarchean, more than four
billion years ago, have long since been destroyed by multiple changes in
the lithosphere. However, the simulation of collisions showed that they
had to affect the speed of rotation of the planet. In addition, their
tracks can be detected in the heterogeneity of the composition of the
earth’s crust: for example, small differences in the content of
isotopes, which have survived up to the present time.
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