A multiple-impact origin for the Moon

[Buzz Bloom]

I have read the abstract for the Jan 9, 2017 article cited below.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2866.html
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I do not access to the whole article, and I would be very interested to see comments about this article.

 

[Andrew Mason]

This article about the paper goes into a bit more detail and provides a video showing the current and proposed theories. See also this phys.org article.

I would like to see the entire paper. I don't understand the improbability argument. If it happened, it happened, regardless of how improbable it is. The angular momentum argument might be more persuasive but the merger of moons to form the present moon would have to have occurred while the moons were in a fluid state. The time frame for this merger due to outward creep of the moonlets must be fairly long.

AM

 

[1oldman2]

This may be relevant also, http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/t...ntists-thought-ucla-led-research-team-reports

 

[Chronos]

Given the choice between multiple theories, Occam's razor is an appealing discriminator. The giant impactor theory is fairly compelling on those grounds. Fewer loose ends are ordinarily favored absent conficting evidence and I don't see any such that is particularly compelling.