Earth's Moon is Rare Oddball
by Dave Mosther
SPACE.COM
The moon formed after a nasty planetary collision with young Earth, yet it looks odd next to its watery orbital neighbor. Turns out it really is odd: Only about one in every 10 to 20 solar systems may harbor a similar moon.
New observations made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stellar dust clouds suggest that moons like Earth's are—at most—in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.
"When a moon forms from a violent collision, dust should be blasted everywhere," said Nadya Gorlova, an astronomer at the University of Florida in Gainesville who analyzed the telescope data in a new study. "If there were lots of moons forming, we would have seen dust around lots of stars. But we didn't."
Gorlova and her team detail their findings in today's issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Violent birth
Shortly after the sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago, scientists think a vagrant planet as big as Mars smacked into infant Earth and ripped off a chunk of our home's smoldering mantle. The rocky, dusty leftovers fell into orbit around our wounded planet, eventually coalescing into the moon we see today.
The scenario is unique among other moons in the solar system, which formed side-by-side with their planet or were captured by its gravity. Gorlova and her colleagues looked for the dusty signs of similar smash-ups around 400 stars, all about 30 million years old—roughly the age of our sun when Earth's moon formed.
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The cosmos is beyond my comprehension. It is interesting to hear scientists try to explain the most incredible, incomprehensible things in human terms. I'm not knocking science, because Science gives us insight into the incredible wisdom, creativity, and intelligence of God's creation. But I think God confounds the scientists by doing things they just can't explain. It leaves us in awesome wonder of Him.
by Dave Mosther
SPACE.COM
The moon formed after a nasty planetary collision with young Earth, yet it looks odd next to its watery orbital neighbor. Turns out it really is odd: Only about one in every 10 to 20 solar systems may harbor a similar moon.
New observations made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stellar dust clouds suggest that moons like Earth's are—at most—in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.
"When a moon forms from a violent collision, dust should be blasted everywhere," said Nadya Gorlova, an astronomer at the University of Florida in Gainesville who analyzed the telescope data in a new study. "If there were lots of moons forming, we would have seen dust around lots of stars. But we didn't."
Gorlova and her team detail their findings in today's issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Violent birth
Shortly after the sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago, scientists think a vagrant planet as big as Mars smacked into infant Earth and ripped off a chunk of our home's smoldering mantle. The rocky, dusty leftovers fell into orbit around our wounded planet, eventually coalescing into the moon we see today.
The scenario is unique among other moons in the solar system, which formed side-by-side with their planet or were captured by its gravity. Gorlova and her colleagues looked for the dusty signs of similar smash-ups around 400 stars, all about 30 million years old—roughly the age of our sun when Earth's moon formed.
Read the rest of the article
The cosmos is beyond my comprehension. It is interesting to hear scientists try to explain the most incredible, incomprehensible things in human terms. I'm not knocking science, because Science gives us insight into the incredible wisdom, creativity, and intelligence of God's creation. But I think God confounds the scientists by doing things they just can't explain. It leaves us in awesome wonder of Him.
Labels: Christian Life, Wonder, Worship Leading
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