What makes up our solar system. Note that Pluto is no longer considered a planet.
Origins of the Earth & Moon
What makes up our solar system. Note that Pluto
is no longer considered a planet.
The earth was probably made at the same time as our sun. The sun is probably a secondary star, that is it was created from another star by a super-nova. This would be necessary to create the heavy elements that are found in the earth. The heavier elements come from the remains of previous stars that both burnt up normally, and went nova. The remainder of 'stars' not just a single star, or else there would be not be enough fussionable material to make our sun. There is lots of hydrogen around to form new stars. Nova exploding will redistribute material away from its original birthplace.
One popular theory is that a Mars size planetoid hit the earth,
ejecting matter into space which then settled into our current moon. The fact
that the moon is spinning in perfect synchronization with the earth so that we only see one
side I think is the key to explaining why it must have been formed by a
collision of an object with the earth. An object simply caught in our
gravity would not have synced it's rotation like that.
Here it is explained in this link:-
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/08/15/moon.impact/index.html
The Monty Python Team produced a very amusing song about what
I have described. So to get another perspective on things I would invite
you to hear their song.
Hear what the Monty Python Team think!
Note that this file is 1.24 Mb long, if you do not have high speed internet
access you are better to down-load the file here.
The lyrics are also on this page.