History of Solar System Formation and Evolution Hypotheses - Lunar Origins Hypotheses

Lunar Origins Hypotheses

Over the centuries, many scientific hypotheses have been advanced concerning the origin of Earth's Moon. One of the earliest was the so-called binary accretion model, which concluded that the Moon accreted from material in orbit around the Earth left over from its formation. Another, the fission model, was developed by George Darwin, (son of Charles Darwin) who noted that, as the Moon is gradually receding from the Earth at a rate of about 4 cm per year, so at one point in the distant past it must have been part of the Earth, but was flung outward by the momentum of Earth's then–much faster rotation. This hypothesis is also supported by the fact that the Moon's density, while less than Earth's, is about equal to that of Earth's rocky mantle, suggesting that, unlike the Earth, it lacks a dense iron core. A third hypothesis, known as the capture model, suggested that the Moon was an independently orbiting body that had been snared into orbit by Earth's gravity.