A crucial difference in the “fingerprints” of Earth and the moon confirms an explosive, interconnected past Within the first 150 million years after our solar system formed, a giant body roughly the ...

Billions of years ago, so the theory goes, something around the size of Mars smacked into Earth, spewing a whole bunch of dirt into space that eventually coalesced to form the Moon. This is called the ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American The Moon has been a point of fascination in ...

Scientists have shown how the freezing of a ‘slushy’ ocean of magma may be responsible for the composition of the Moon’s crust. The scientists, from the University of Cambridge and the Ecole normale ...

The moon — for all its silent loveliness — was born in violence. About 4.5 billion years ago, a planet-sized object rammed the Earth and reduced it to a bleeding molten gob of starstuff, leaking like ...

A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...

Eons ago, in the frigid depths of our solar system, a dramatic collision occurred between two icy worlds. Instead of a catastrophic smash-up, the two bodies "kissed," merging temporarily like a ...

Scientists have gone back and forth about explanations for the moon's formation for decades, with the general consensus being that it formed during some type of cosmic collision between Earth and a ...

"For the first time, we have physical evidence showing us what was happening in the moon's interior during this critical stage of its evolution, and that's really exciting." When you purchase through ...