Scientists have discovered an anomalous blob of heat on the far side of the moon.
This mysterious hotspot has a strange origin: It’s likely caused by the natural radiation emanating from a huge buried mass of granite, which is rarely found in large quantities outside of Earth, according to new research. On the moon, a dead volcano that hasn’t erupted for 3.5 billion years is likely the source of this unusual hunk of granite.
would this granite constitute evidence that the moon struck earth at some point?
The moon is hypothesized to be made of material from when Theia (hypothetically) struck Earth billions of years ago. Most of the matter became the Earth and some spun out into space and became the moon.
As someone else already commented, the leading theory since several decades (all other theories about the origin of Earth’s moon fell by the wayside once we went to the moon and brought back moon rocks for analysis) is that Proto-Earth collided with a roughly Mars-sized object we’re calling Theia. As a result, the material from both was mixed. Part of that mix of two (proto-)planets got ejected and formed the moon, while the rest formed the Earth (with smaller objects forming temporarily in unstable orbits and raining down as meteorites on both the Earth and the Moon).
Here’s a Wikipedia article on the topic
Some podcast I was listening to was saying something to the effect that one of the reasons we have such a diverse mix of elements close enough to the surface to easily mine was thought to be due to that collision. Interesting stuff.
This is interesting. Sounds like it makes finding other intelligent beings much less likely, which is a bit sad I guess.
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We are also in a particularly unique location for our universe in terms of being able to view the wider universe. Were we any further center or any further out, we would have much less of an observable universe. Stars would not have shown up in the night sky until the 1970’s due to the distance.
Space is dark. We are in a very well lit part of it :)