6 thoughts on “A Younger Moon”

  2. “While scientists have previously thought that this moon-forming collision happened 4.51 billion years ago, the new work pegged the moon’s birth at only 4.425 billion years ago. ”

    4.425 billion years ago next Thursday, to be precise. Get with it, Chelsea…

    1. There is an old, old joke about an earnest undergraduate in the first-year Astronomy course.

      In the Stellar Evolution module, this student became quite distraught about the prediction that the Sun will turn into a red giant, scorching the Earth. On being reminded by the instructor, “This won’t happen for another 5 billion years”, the student expressed relief by responding, “Professor, you had me worried. I had thought you had said 5 million years!”

  3. This study is a geochemical model, which by its very nature is based on a lot more assumptions and model parameters than more straightforward isotope models (specifically from the production of tungsten isotopes, plus some xenon isotopes, I’ll bet). Is it interesting? Yes. Is it definitive? Probably not. I’d be shocked, shocked, if things didn’t evolve over the next few years. What it will really take is for us to have a lot more sampling and analysis of lunar rocks. You can only stretch Apollo so far.

  4. There is an old, old joke about an earnest undergraduate in the first-year Astronomy course.

    In the Stellar Evolution module, this student became quite distraught about the prediction that the Sun will turn into a red giant, scorching the Earth. On being reminded by the instructor, “This won’t happen for another 5 billion years”, the student expressed relief by responding, “Professor, you had me worried. I had thought you had said 5 million years!”

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