Celestia Forums

trialala

Nice story
Against a lot of physics and most geosience, planetary sience and other sience knowledge, but nice.
Make an addon out of it

maxim

Can you be more specific about what science rules is against my theory?
And while you are doing this check out scandinavia and top left sea of Canada on any map you can find and you'll eventually see that Earth's surface was round

Small correction: Top RIGHT sea of Canada : Hudson Bay.. Scandinavia should have been there

IosifK,

It's up to you to prove your theory.
You must provide the evidence which shows that it's correct.

"Handwaving" arguments are not adequate.

I'm not trying to "handwave" any arguments. I don't know much about astronomy or geology nor do I have any equipment to do the research that needs to be done in order to prove it. I'm just a 25 years old Computer Programmer that had an insight and didn't know what else to do than post it on forums.

Okay.
1) We know that an impact hard enough to blow off the Moon would deliver enough energy to melt the Earth, the Moon and the impactor almost right through. So that means the impact occurred before any of the current continental rocks formed (let alone something as recent as Pangaea). A completely molten surface would prevent any volcano formation such as you describe, and would certainly prevent the Moon carrying off any "imprint" with a recognizable map of Pangaea on it.
2) The ancient impactor isn't predicted to be out there in the solar system for you to find ... planets can't bounce like billiard balls. Instead, the impactor's mass was mixed with the molten mass of Earth and the Moon.
3) Scandinavia was never tucked into Hudson Bay. We know precisely where it started existence from geology and palaeomagnetism ... it was tucked against the east side of Greenland and the British Isles, and its mountain belts form part of a once-continuous chain that runs from Scandinavia to the Appalachians.
4) For the Moon to take a significant shove from volcanic gas, it would need to interact with a mass of gas about equal to its own mass (ballpark estimate). Since the Earth's volcanoes couldn't target the Moon, volcanic gas would have to flow out in all directions, and only a tiny proportion would strike the Moon at any one time. So the Earth would have to blow off many times the Moon's mass in volcanic gases, or several times its own weight.

So as maxim says, I'm afraid your idea just doesn't work at the level of really very basic, known facts about the world and about physics.
You are also giving a new explanation for something that is really very well explained already. Your explanation doesn't enlighten us about anything we don't understand about the Moon's formation, and it makes several claims that we know are false. That's why Selden was pointing out that the onus of proof is on you ... you've got a lot of hard work to do if you are to make this at all plausible.

Grant

IosifK,

One of the underlying philosophies of science is that
"Extraordinary claims requre extraordinary evidence."
This phrase was popularized by Carl Sagan some years ago. It can be applied to quite a few situations but what it means is that for new theories to be successful, they must do a better job of fitting the known facts than do previous theories.

You're young enough and intelligent enough that you should seriously consider becoming more educated in the necessary scientific tools -- mathematics, classical mechanics, etc. -- so that you can do a good job of the research that's needed to change your hypothesis into a theory.

1) We know that an impact hard enough to blow off the Moon would deliver enough energy to melt the Earth, the Moon and the impactor almost right through. So that means the impact occurred before any of the current continental rocks formed (let alone something as recent as Pangaea). A completely molten surface would prevent any volcano formation such as you describe, and would certainly prevent the Moon carrying off any "imprint" with a recognizable map of Pangaea on it.

You just didn't understand the whole point. Can you please reread what I wrote?

I'm saying: We're standing in the middle of the impactor which is slowly melting on the surface of Earth bellow us (BELLOW THE WATER). The surface of Earth is the one that Tectonic Plates were created on. The rest was just plain ice before the impact. Something like Europa. Tectonic Plates as I've read were created 1 billion years ago. If you calculate the spot of the Moon at that time you'll figure out ->

3.8cm is the distance the moon travels away from Earth each year.
So after the calculation then Moon would be 1.000.000.000 * 3.8 = 380.000 km closer to Earth.

This means 384.000 - 380.000 away from the water atmosphere of Earth.

2) The ancient impactor isn't predicted to be out there in the solar system for you to find ... planets can't bounce like billiard balls. Instead, the impactor's mass was mixed with the molten mass of Earth and the Moon.

Look at answear to 1. (We're still melting)

3) Scandinavia was never tucked into Hudson Bay. We know precisely where it started existence from geology and palaeomagnetism ... it was tucked against the east side of Greenland and the British Isles, and its mountain belts form part of a once-continuous chain that runs from Scandinavia to the Appalachians.

Sorry my wrong you are right. Should have searched more for information

4) For the Moon to take a significant shove from volcanic gas, it would need to interact with a mass of gas about equal to its own mass (ballpark estimate). Since the Earth's volcanoes couldn't target the Moon, volcanic gas would have to flow out in all directions, and only a tiny proportion would strike the Moon at any one time. So the Earth would have to blow off many times the Moon's mass in volcanic gases, or several times its own weight.

When the impactor hit the surface of Earth (bellow us) it would crack at the point of impact. Now imagine a number of volcanos equal to Moon's craters and equal size exploding at the same time! I think that should do it.


So as maxim says, I'm afraid your idea just doesn't work at the level of really very basic, known facts about the world and about physics.
You are also giving a new explanation for something that is really very well explained already. Your explanation doesn't enlighten us about anything we don't understand about the Moon's formation, and it makes several claims that we know are false. That's why Selden was pointing out that the onus of proof is on you ... you've got a lot of hard work to do if you are to make this at all plausible.

What you have right now is this:

700 million years ago or so a massive asteroid rain cause a lot of craters on the moon.. Among them is the largest impact found in the Solar System. And that happened at the face of the moon that always faces Earth!
For God's sake.. How can an asteroid pass through Earth and hit the Moon?
Stupidest idea ever.

I wonder why can't you see that this theory makes sense.. A lot of sense actually. You can answer most unanswered astronomy and geology questions with this.

eg: Same materials on Moon and Earth surface as we know it.
Why is the smooth face of the Moon so smooth? (Water?)
Why is the rough face of the Moon so rough? (we are the rest of it)
Why does Earth have so small impact crators? (cause we are in the middle of a planet that was split from the moon)
Why was pangrea round?
Why is there sulfur only near impact crators on Moon?

And you'll soon find a lot of more unanswered questions and even I'll find more evidence that this holds.

Last but not least.. Just open the texture of moon from Celestia in any painting program and do negative image.. You'll quickly find australia and Europe..

I think it is painfully obvious that your theory is just plain bad science, based on a lot of items that are simply not correct.

However, I'm not going to debate it here; this *is* a Celestia forum, not Usenet.

I *do*, however, invite you to join the Great Big Group of Everything, located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greatbiggroup/ As the name implies, subjects of all sorts are welcome, and we do have some very bright folks there (there are even a couple of astronomers and geologists).

If you truly think that there is something to your theory, then post it there, and we can go over it, point by point.

...John...

Negative photo of Moon = Map of Pangea
If you multiply all areas by 4 (which is the Moon : Earth surface ratio) you'll notice that australia now is almost the same as australia on the negative photo
This multiplication can be explained by water forming the continents for the past 1 billion years.
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/greatbiggroup/vwp?.dir=/&.src=gr&.dnm=NegaMoon.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/greatbiggroup/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=t

IosifK wrote:I'm saying: We're standing in the middle of the impactor which is slowly melting on the surface of Earth bellow us (BELLOW THE WATER). The surface of Earth is the one that Tectonic Plates were created on. The rest was just plain ice before the impact. Something like Europa.

This makes so little sense it's mindboggling.

We know that the earth is made entirely of silicate material with molten metal in the core. We know this from analysis of seismic data from earthquakes, from which we can extract the material properties of the stuff the seismic waves pass through. We know the internal structure of the earth (silicate crust and mantle, molten Fe/FeS outer core, solid inner core).

The Earth isn't icy with a veneer of silicate material over it.

Tectonic Plates as I've read were created 1 billion years ago. If you calculate the spot of the Moon at that time you'll figure out ->

I'm pretty sure tectonism started before 1 Ga ago. It started off as lots of mini-plates, and as the heat flow from the Earth decreased with time the activity transitioned to larger plates.

3.8cm is the distance the moon travels away from Earth each year.
So after the calculation then Moon would be 1.000.000.000 * 3.8 = 380.000 km closer to Earth.

This means 384.000 - 380.000 away from the water atmosphere of Earth.

Nice try. the 4 cm increase in orbital distance isn't constant with time - the tidal forces that push the moon away from the Earth (and slow down the earth's rotation in the process) were stronger when the moon was closer.

Now, you're not wrong about an impactor forming the moon. The currently accepted theory is that a Mars-sized object collided with the earth about 4 billion years ago, totally melted the entire surface of the planet and blasted away a good chunk of atmosphere (and solid body) in the process, and the debris that remained in orbit formed the Moon. But this was WAY before anything resembling the continents or their predecessors or even tectonic plates had formed (and the impact obliterated the entire surface anyway). Chances are that a sizable chunk of the core of the Earth actually originated from the impactor, which sank and settled down there.
In a sense, you're right - we're standing on the impactor, some of which has become part of the Earth. A lot of it became the Moon, however. But there's no way that the Earth was or is anything like what you suggest.

There's a good summary of the Giant Impact Hypothesis here:
http://www.xtec.es/recursos/astronom/moon/camerone.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2780399.stm

Look at answear to 1. (We're still melting)

You're incorrect though. There is simply no geophysical or geochemical evidence to support your hypothesis as you've stated it. You've fallen for the standard pseudo-scientific logic of "something superficially looks like X, therefore it must be X" without any more solid evidence to support your assertions.

Sorry my wrong you are right. Should have searched more for information

While you're at it, you should also search for some basic information on geology and planetary science. The Evolving Continents by B. F. Windley is a pretty good primer on Earth's evolution, IIRC. The New Solar System by Beatty et al or Moons and Planets by William Hartmann should fill you in on the rest...

When the impactor hit the surface of Earth (bellow us) it would crack at the point of impact. Now imagine a number of volcanos equal to Moon's craters and equal size exploding at the same time! I think that should do it.

It wouldn't "crack", it would be utterly destroyed. the impact would blast a huge amount of material clean off the surface (look at the animations at the URL for the Cameron paper above). The moon doesn't just pop out fully formed!

Most of the impact craters on the Moon have been shown to be just that - craters from meteorite impacts on the Moon's surface. There are a few that are volcanic in origin, but most are from impacts.

So as maxim says, I'm afraid your idea just doesn't work at the level of really very basic, known facts about the world and about physics.
You are also giving a new explanation for something that is really very well explained already. Your explanation doesn't enlighten us about anything we don't understand about the Moon's formation, and it makes several claims that we know are false. That's why Selden was pointing out that the onus of proof is on you ... you've got a lot of hard work to do if you are to make this at all plausible.

You're being far too polite, grant . It can't be "made plausible", it's complete baloney. I don't see what's to be gained by encouraging him to waste more time trying to find proof for his ideas that simply doesn't exist.

700 million years ago or so a massive asteroid rain cause a lot of craters on the moon.. Among them is the largest impact found in the Solar System. And that happened at the face of the moon that always faces Earth!

You mean the South Pole Aitken basin? The one that's on the farside of the moon that doesn't face the Earth?

For God's sake.. How can an asteroid pass through Earth and hit the Moon?
Stupidest idea ever.

It doesn't have to pass through the Earth to hit the moon. There's 384,000 km between us and the Moon. Asteroids that can hit either body are what, about 50km diameter tops? You'll find that the Earth obstruct only a tiny, tiny number of bodies of that kind of size.

I wonder why can't you see that this theory makes sense.. A lot of sense actually.

Because it doesn't. It contradicts all the geophysical and geochemical evidence that we have gathered so far about the Earth and Moon. Plus it contradicts a lot of basic physics too.

The moon was probably formed by an impact, yes. But the reality is nothing like what you're proposing.

eg: Same materials on Moon and Earth surface as we know it.

Yes, that's answered by the fact that the moon was formed from the Earth shortly after it formed.

Why is the smooth face of the Moon so smooth? (Water?)

The nearside (I presume that's what you claim is "smooth") is not smooth, it's actually quite a lot of topographic variation there. The dark "smooth" regions there are "maria" that were formed by lava erupting and filling impact basins when the moon was volcanically active a few billion years ago.

Why is the rough face of the Moon so rough? (we are the rest of it)

Er, no. The crust is much thinner on the nearside than in the farside, which is how magma could get up to the surface there and not so much on the farside, which is mostly covered with craters that haven't been filled up.

Why does Earth have so small impact crators? (cause we are in the middle of a planet that was split from the moon)

Remember that "plate tectonics" thing? The plate movements and recyclind destroys impact craters - they get subducted or deformed by faults and removed by erosion. The ones on the Moon haven't been removed (though the lava that formed the dark maria flooded over and covered existing craters in the depressions in which they formed, which is why there are less craters there than elsewhere on the Moon).

Why was pangrea round?

Doesn't look very round to me - here's a map of it from a paleogeographic mapping project: http://www.scotese.com/newpage5.htm

And no, your moon-forming impact didn't cause everything to die out at the end of the Permian era...

Why is there sulfur only near impact crators on Moon?

You got a reference for this?

And you'll soon find a lot of more unanswered questions and even I'll find more evidence that this holds.

Good luck with that

Last but not least.. Just open the texture of moon from Celestia in any painting program and do negative image.. You'll quickly find australia and Europe..

Now you're being really silly. Why the heck would something that looks similar on an inverted image of a moon map have any connection with continents that formed on a different planet at a much later date?!

Do us a favour. Before you waste our time with any more ridiculous hypotheses, try getting a basic background in the sciences that you're proposing your idea for. It is patently obvious that you have very little (if any) understanding about geology, physics, geochemistry, astronomy, or planetary science.

Wow...
I am sorry to say that you are almost wrong in every point you made...
First of all: when that Mars-sized planet(call it X, Y or what ever you want), Earth was very young, and it was not covered with ice like Europa, there was no land, and there wasnt even water at all, IT WAS JUST MELTED! A BALL OF MAGMA!(at least thats what I read, but I am sure that at least it was not what you said) When that X/Y planet crashed(I think that planet was also melted) the collision throwed a lot of that melted material to space and both planets(Earth and X/Y), because they were not solid, they "joint" in one planet. Then the material in teh space, with the time, became what we call now the Moon.

An other thing you are wrong at is this: you are saying that the near side of the moon has more craters?? Now I will tell you: have a look at the map of the moon in celestia... You will finde that the far side is more cratered(by far) that the near side. And that has an explanation too: the Earth has a bigger mass right? So it will "attract" asterodis with more force than the moon would do. Some of those asteroid crashed on the Earth, but the impact craters were erosed(sp?) by water, wind, volcanic activity, etc. Sometimes those heading-Earth-Asteroids found that Earth has something like a force shield - The moon. We can say that the moon has protected us from asteroids heading in our way. And thats the reason why the near side is not so cratered(in comparission with the far side): the asteroids heading to earth that came from the oposite side that the moon was at that moment:
Astroid--->EArth---Moon
Found that they were atracted to earth more stronger, so they crashed here. But sometimes asteroids cme from anyother direction and they did crash the moon in the near side, giving us spectacular impact craters, like Tyco, Copernicus and friends.
My english is not to so good so probably you didnt udnerstand anything ...
"Henyway" take a look at some images of the near and far sides:


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/ ... 16_big.gif
http://www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/clementine/ ... arside.JPG

Evil Dr Ganymede wrote:

... you've got a lot of hard work to do if you are to make this at all plausible.

You're being far too polite, grant . It can't be "made plausible" ...

You don't think rebuilding the whole of physics could be described as "a lot of hard work"? Oh well.

Grant

Check the side of the moon that always faces us.. Doesn't this look molten to you? Just compare it to the other side. This could explain the smoothness of the area.

This site http://www.xtec.es/recursos/astronom/moon/camerone.htm made me actually confirm more about my theory.. Check out the impact scenarios and you'll probably understand.

IosifK wrote:Check the side of the moon that always faces us.. Doesn't this look molten to you?

People have walked on the Moon. It's not molten.
I'd hoped you were someone who'd dropped by to ask if your idea made any sense - but you're clearly not interested in making sense. I'm sorry, but that makes further discussion pointless.

Grant

IosifK wrote:Check the side of the moon that always faces us.. Doesn't this look molten to you? Just compare it to the other side. This could explain the smoothness of the area.

It's not molten. It WAS molten, because the dark areas are solidified flood lavas. But it's not anymore.

Here, this explains about the crustal assymmetry on the Moon...
http://ottawa.rasc.ca/astronomy/geology/moon3/

This site http://www.xtec.es/recursos/astronom/moon/camerone.htm made me actually confirm more about my theory.. Check out the impact scenarios and you'll probably understand.

Of course it "confirms more about your theory" - because Cameron's theory is also that the moon formed from an impact. The difference is that his theory is based on reality and scientific data, and yours is not.

I don't know why you're so intent on deluding yourself that your "hypothesis" has merit - it doesn't. There is simply no data that supports your ideas. All you have is a belief that you're right, despite all data to the contrary - and that means you're not remotely scientific. Science is based on FACT, not faith. The fact of the matter is that you do not know better than all the scientists out there. It's a wacky idea that has no basis in fact, it is trivial to disprove, and it's just plain wrong. Get it out of your head and read up on the material and don't think you know better than the authors.

Pardon...

If the truly Brain-Dead might make a small observation here?

What a load of crap! Why do you MIT types even reply
to this stuff?

Thanks for your kind attention.

Let me throw in something I've always wondered about. When the debris from the collision of proto-Earth / Mars-sized thing was in orbit, forming the Moon, it probably formed many small moonlets first that later gathered into bigger moons, and utlimately one moon. But as the current Moon was almost formed, it probably had enough gravity to eject a lot of the competing moonlets from the Earth / Moon system. These moonlets would enter solar orbits very similar to the orbit of the Earth / Moon system. But the Earth / Moon system doesn't have enough gravity to eject these moonlets to escape velocity of the Sun. So the moonlets ultimate fate would be a future collision with either the Earth or the Moon. And they could survive for many millions of years before colliding. Could this explain why the Moon is more heavily cratered than Mercury, despite being younger. Or why the Moon has more large basins than Mercury? Some of these moonlets probably had pretty respectable masses. And could this be the source of the Late Heavy Bombardment? From what I've read about the Late Heavy Bombardment, it had a definate beginning and a definate end, and the beginning was millions of years after the collision that formed the Moon. So that kinda weakens my Late Heavy Bobmardment theory, as the bombardment should have started and been at its strongest just after the moon-forming collision. Unless the start time is not as well known as the end time. Any thoughts?

Well, I do seem to recall a hypothesis that the Moon once itself had some smaller moonlets that crashed into it (because moons around moons aren't stable) to form the big basins that later became the maria. I'm pretty sure it was published as a note or a paper in a journal quite a long time ago - so it might be an old idea that's fallen out of favour... but presumably those moonlets were leftovers from formation.

I thought people had pinned the Late Heavy Bombardment on the late formation of Uranus and Neptune, which tossed a lot of comets sunwards.