Drifting away from Earth... How did the Moon form?

This is a short, two-part post about our beloved Moon.  First of all, how did it form?

Nobody really knows for sure, but it is a fun question! Is it really made of cheese? Did the Moon arrive via Divine Consciousness? Is our Moon really an ancient spaceship? Ha! The leading and trending theories say NO. I suppose the collision theory is the current leader, but opinions vary. They think that while the proto-Earth was churning with the rest of our Solar System, that a large, Mars-like object slammed into Earth. From there, the debris, due to gravity, came together to form the proto-Moon. Then, the aliens built a spaceship on the far-side of this celestial body. LOL! Okay, I just made that last part up.

Other theories involve "the sister theory" and "the fission theory" and "the capture theory." I guess I could go about explaining those, but why bother? Well, in a thumbnail, the capture theory is just basically saying that the Moon formed elsewhere and was later trapped and/or captured by Earth's gravitational pull. The fission theory is trying to imply that the proto-earth fragmented and split apart during formation. The sister theory is that the Moon and the Earth formed separately but within the same time and place.

As you can see, we really have no idea. Well, I'm pretty sure it isn't made of cheese! Ha! Then again, some people on LSD may say that a massive galactic spaceship drug the Moon to us by a long cosmic chain. LOL! Does anybody else have any theories out there?

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Source = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

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Part 2: "The Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth"

Ahh, this is such a mysterious celestial object... Is the Moon receding from Earth? Yeah, it is slowly drifting away, but it is nothing for us to fear. The last estimation I have heard, was roughly 1.5 inches per year. I've heard of a distance slightly less and slightly more, but either way it is a minuscule amount of space. I'm sure many of you were aware of this factoid, but I just threw that out there just in case. A few years ago it was like common trivia: "Hey, did you know the moon is drifting away from Earth?" Ha-ha! Like this is something we should celebrate and rejoice.

If you buy into the collision theory, the Moon used to be a lot closer to us and has been receding from Earth, for many years. What I find the most interesting by far, is that we live in the perfect time at the perfect distance to where we can have solar and lunar eclipses. Is that neat or what? Several thousands and thousands of years ago, this most likely would have not been possible. I better stop there or else I'll start sounding like a flaming proponent for the Anthropic Principle. LOL!


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Update: Now they say the Moon is hiding enough oxygen for billions of people to breathe for 100,000 years. Wow! That is a big claim. They say the only problem is how to get it out. The concise premise of this is basically extracting oxygen from moon rocks. The Moon's surface regolith contains magnesium oxides, iron, aluminum, and silica. All of these minerals contain oxygen in solid form, at least in part (the claim is currently 45% for the moon rocks). They say extracting the oxygen would be the same process in which we make aluminum, which could also be used for building material on the Moon. However, getting an industrial-sized electrolysis machine from Earth to the Moon might be a bit of a challenge. Well, I just thought I'd add these extra tidbits to this post. It started with the question "how did it form," then it was drifting away from Earth, now we are talking about extracting oxygen from the rocks. What's next? Speaking of that, this last update reminds me of another post I did on this blog, here: Mining Asteroids for Resources: Minerals & Water

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Update #2 (2-13-2022): I recently stumbled upon a video post online that was trying to add a bit of doom & gloom into the lunar mix. The post was titled "Why the Moon Could Cause the End of the World By 2030." As you can imagine, it had already received loads of comments. I would link to that post, but it is on msn.com at the moment and they are known to delete posts later on as they become aged. I'd rather not come back to this part of the post a few years later with the usual "link is no longer active" crap, so let's move forward. If you're interested in this subject, I'm sure you can find it online via a video search. Anyway, they were saying how the Moon goes through a "wobble effect" every 18 years, with the last one happening during the famous year of 2012. This supposedly affects the oceanic tides in a more intense fashion. With the next Moon wobble events scheduled for 2030, they were saying it could be a lot more catastrophic than the other lunar events from years past due to global warming, melting glaciers, and rising oceans. Is it possible? Sure, it is, but I doubt that the Planet's inhabitants will be wiped out due to anything to do with the Moon. I mean, climate change, for whatever reason, is really showing itself over the last several years, so any other cosmic event that creates additional chaos could obviously factor in. Is this last update worthy of the "doom & gloom" status? I doubt it. I just hope the entire world hasn't gone completely bonkers by then or that we haven't started a nuclear war and/or World War 3 by then. There are much more pressing issues on the planet right now, but just thought I'd add these tidbits to this post since it is slowly drifting into a lunar gossip column. Ha!

Semi-related Post: "The Lunar Effect - Full Moon Madness"

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