Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Kinetic Energy, Giant-Impact Hypothesis, Terrestrial Planet
15 Apr 2016
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2. 1: solid, rocky surfaces of the terrestrial planets characterize them, composition of. Rocky" material is common to them all: lots of silicon (si), oxygen (o), aluminum (al), magnesium (mg), sulfur (s), and iron (fe), and basalt. Basalt: an igneous rock, the primary product of volcanic lava, ne grained, dark grey to black. Three hypotheses prior to 1970"s about how moon formed but very little hard evidence to support any: Saturday, january 30, 2016: fission hypothesis: moon broke off from a rapidly spinning earth. Know as the: condensation hypothesis: earth and moon formed contemporaneously from the same material, capture hypothesis: moon formed as an independent planetary body that was later captured" by earth during a close pass. First proposed more than 100 years ago by george darwin (charles darwin"s son) This theory would requite the earth to have rotated one every 2. 5 hours rather than every 24 hours, so this hypothesis was rejected. 1. 2 the condensation hypothesis (or contemporaneous formation hypothesis)
