If you know any bit of information about how the moon was created, new research indicates that everyone has believed wrong.<\/p>\n
As the story goes, 4.5 billion years ago, the moon was born as a result of a giant Mars-sized object named Theia crashing into Earth.<\/p>\n
This collision was responsible for more than just creating the moon \u2014 it also affected the shape, mass and composition of the Earth.<\/p>\n
However, new research from the journal Science and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) suggests that this historic collision might not have been as accidental as it seems.<\/p>\n
Scientists are reportedly just finding out that influential Theia might have been formed in the solar system right alongside Earth, meaning these two were once upon a time neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most convincing scenario is that most of the building blocks of Earth and Theia originated in the inner Solar System,\u201d said Timo Hopp, a geoscientist and Lab Manager with the MPS and the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, according to Universe Today.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarth and Theia are likely to have been neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Understandable if you, too, are scratching your head at this new information.<\/p>\n
One of the clues that helped scientists figure this out was Earth\u2019s iron content.<\/p>\n
When our planet was still forming, a substantial amount of iron trickled into Earth\u2019s core, yet its mantle still had a great amount of iron in it.<\/p>\n
All of this means that the planet\u2019s mantle must\u2019ve gotten its iron from elsewhere, aka Theia, later on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe composition of a body archives its entire history of formation, including its place of origin,\u201d Thosten Klein of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) said in a statement, according to Space.com.<\/p>\n
Despite this new information, some experts are still skeptical about all of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve certainly done a lot of work, taking a smorgasbord of samples and trying to make sense of it all,\u201d Dr. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, told the New York Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past really is lost to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n