Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Mercury And The Moon

Sean Solomon, principal investigator of NASA's Messenger probe to Mercury, argues that studying small, rocky, aurless Mercury could help explain the origin of Earth's Moon.

Currently, scientists think a huge body slammed into Earth, and the Moon formed from the debris, but that theory seems at best incomplete.  Solomon points out that no one believes Mercury formed that way, yet Mercury and the Moon have several common traits.  Focusing on those traits might yield a broader theory of rocky world evolution.

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