Astronomers have taken a step towards understanding how the Moon might have formed out of a giant collision between the early Earth and another massive object 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists led by ...

The formation of the Moon billions of years ago is cloaked in mystery. Most astronomers believe the young Earth, still cooling off from its formation, was struck by a mars-sized body called Theia, ...

The simulation below demonstrates how the single-stage formation would have happened. Theia's impact causes a massive disruption in the primordial Earth, ejecting material that initially forms two ...

MFM simulation of the canonical Moon-Forming giant impact. Here different colors trace different components of Gaia and Theia. The lower mantle of Gaia, denoted by the dashed circle with a radius of 0 ...