Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: George Darwin, Terrestrial Planet, Earth'S Rotation
19 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
Mercury has no natural satellite, venus also has none, earth has one (the moon), and mars has two puny little misshapen ones. It is actually very difficult to explain how a planet like earth could be partnered with a satellite like the moon, and explaining the origin of the moon is a very active area of research today. Prior to the 1970s, three hypotheses were tossed around but there was little hard evidence to support any one. The three suggestions were: moon broke off from a rapidly spinning earth. This was known as the fission hypothesis: earth and moon formed contemporaneously from the same material. This was called the condensation hypothesis: moon formed as an independent planetary body that was later captured" by earth during a close pass. One of the main scientific objectives of the apollo space program was to resolve the question of lunar origin by testing these hypotheses. However, the results were not exactly what anyone expected.
