Privileged Planet: our tilt helps life (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, July 29, 2019, 19:43 (1735 days ago) @ David Turell

New research indicates the moon was around very early after the Earth formed which helped the Earth support life:

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-moon-older-previously-believed.html

"A new study spearheaded by Earth scientists at the University of Cologne's Institute of Geology and Mineralogy has constrained the age of the Moon to approximately 50 million years after the formation of the solar system. After the formation of the solar system, 4.56 billion years ago, the Moon formed approximately 4.51 billion years ago. The new study has thus determined that the Moon is significantly older than previously believed—earlier research had estimated the Moon to have formed approximately 150 million years after solar system's formation. To achieve these results, the scientists analysed the chemical composition of a diverse range of samples collected during the Apollo missions. The study "Early Moon formation inferred from hafnium-tungsten systematics' was published in Nature Geoscience.

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"The Moon likely formed in the aftermath of a giant collision between a Mars-sized planetary body and the early Earth. Over time, the Moon accreted from the cloud of material blasted into Earth's orbit. The newborn Moon was covered in a magma ocean, which formed different types of rocks as it cooled. "These rocks recorded information about the formation of the Moon, and can still be found today on the lunar surface," says Dr. Maxwell Thiemens, former University of Cologne researcher and lead author of the study. Dr. Peter Sprung, co-author of the study, adds: "Such observations are not possible on Earth anymore, as our planet has been geologically active over time. The Moon thus provides a unique opportunity to study planetary evolution."

"The Cologne scientists used the relationship between the rare elements hafnium, uranium and tungsten as a probe to understand the amount of melting that occurred to generate the mare basalts, i.e., the black regions on the lunar surface. Owing to an unprecedented measurement precision, the study could identify distinct trends amongst the different suites of rocks, which now allows for a better understanding of the behaviour of these key rare elements.

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"...the study finds that the Moon already started solidifying as early as 50 million years after solar system formed. "This age information means that any giant impact had to occur before that time, which answers a fiercely debated question amongst the scientific community regarding when the Moon formed," adds Professor Dr. Carsten Münker.

Comment: Since the moon is so important to stabilizing our planet's tilt, and since we knows life appeared very early, this new finding fits the known events. Not by chance! Designed.