On the Origin of Earth's Moon

Abstract

The Giant Impact is currently accepted as the leading theory for the formation of Earth's Moon. Successful scenarios for lunar origin should be able to explain the chemical composition of the Moon (volatile content and stable isotope ratios), the Moon's initial thermal state, and the system's bulk physical and dynamical properties. Hydrocode simulations of the formation of the Moon have long been able to match the bulk properties, but recent, more detailed work on the evolution of the protolunar disk has yielded great insight into the origin of the Moon's chemistry, and its early thermal history. Here, I show that the community has constructed the elements of an end-to-end theory for lunar origin that matches the overwhelming majority of observational constraints. In spite of the great progress made in recent years, new samples of the Moon, clarification of processes in the impact-generated disk, and a broader exploration of impact parameter space could yield even more insights into this fundamental and uniquely challenging geophysical problem.

57 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables, 2 appendices. Updated on November 12, 2017 to correct two typographical errors in Table 6

References in corpus (9)

• Equilibration in the Aftermath of the Lunar-Forming Giant Impact
• Collisional Stripping and Disruption of Super-Earths
• A primordial origin for the composition similarity between the Earth and the Moon
• Investigation of the Initial State of the Moon-Forming Disk: Bridging SPH Simulations and Hydrostatic Models
• The Feeding Zones of Terrestrial Planets and Insights into Moon Formation
• The Tethered Moon
• On the origin and composition of Theia: Constraints from new models of the Giant Impact
• A smooth particle hydrodynamics code to model collisions between solid, self-gravitating objects
• Speciation and Dissolution of Hydrogen in the Proto-Lunar Disk

Cited by in corpus (22)

• The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial synestia
• On the Impact Origin of Phobos and Deimos I: Thermodynamic and Physical Aspects
• The Shock Physics of Giant Impacts: Key Requirements for the Equations of State
• On the Jacobi capture origin of binaries with applications to the Earth-Moon system and black holes in galactic nuclei
• Enhanced mixing in giant impact simulations with a new Lagrangian method
• The energy budget and figure of Earth during recovery from the Moon-forming giant impact
• A Model of the Primordial Lunar Atmosphere
• Migration processes in the Solar System and their role in the evolution of the Earth and planets
• Collision Chains among the Terrestrial Planets. III. Formation of the Moon
• Effect of Re-impacting Debris on the Solidification of the Lunar Magma Ocean
• Formation of Exomoons: A Solar System Perspective
• Probabilities of collisions of planetesimals from different regions of the feeding zone of the terrestrial planets with the forming planets and the Moon
• A Magnetized, Moon-Forming Giant Impact
• Formation of embryos of the Earth and the Moon from the common rarefied condensation and their subsequent growth
• Thermal evolution of the early Moon
• A Pluto-Charon Sonata III. Growth of Charon from a Circum-Pluto Ring of Debris
• A Systematic Survey of Moon-Forming Giant Impacts. II. Rotating bodies
• Growth of the Moon due to bodies ejected from the Earth
• Forming Massive Terrestrial Satellites through Binary-Exchange Capture
• Probabilities of collisions of bodies ejected from forming Earth with the terrestrial planets
• Migration of celestial bodies in the Solar system and in several exoplanetary systems
• The energy budgets of giant impacts