4 ms·
Just wondering, what would have stopped the Earth from having enough iron on its own in the first place? If the Moon could have that much iron, the Earth could
by Aardwolf 4y ago
Just wondering, what would have stopped the Earth from having enough iron on its own in the first place? If the Moon could have that much iron, the Earth could as well have had it without needing to mix with the Moon, they're made from the same original matter after all.
- TSiege 4y agoThe OP mispoke. It wasn't the moon that collided with earth, but another planet around mar's size. As a result of the collision the the core of that planet combined with the earth and the crust and parts of the mantle were ejected and coalesced into the moon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis
- TheBigSalad 4y agoI think the point still stands though, right? The moon is only 1% the mass of the Earth so if we had all that extra crust it wouldn't make our crust to core ratio so off that we couldn't have an atmosphere.
- temp2022account 4y agoRead TSiege's correction again, it wasn't a (bad numbers) 1000T planet being impacted by a 10T object, it was a 500T object (earth) being impacted by a 500T object (now also earth) and ejecting a 10T object (now moon) from the debris. Without the event we'd have a planet even smaller than mars!
- iso1631 4y agoI guess the question is rather than having 2 planets of 500T each form then collide, couldn't a single 1000T planet have formed from the same material?
- InvaderFizz 4y agoI think the answer is yes, but the only way you get the dynamo of our core(thus strong magnetic field) is that collision, but that's just my fuzzy understanding from occasional reading over the years.
- tablespoon 4y agoAccording to the article below, the impact may have started the magnetic field by mixing the core. It doesn't mention anything about "adding more iron" being in itself more significant. I wonder if the OP is half-remembering a distorted version of this theory. https://phys.org/news/2017-12-doesnt-venus-magnetosphere.html https://phys.org/news/2017-12-doesnt-venus-magnetosphere.htm...