Origin Of The Moon

Year Published: 1969

Complete Record: Our earth and its moon may have begun about five billion years ago in a cloud of cold gases. Whirling and concentrating, the gases formed into our solar system. Moon and earth, held together by gravity so closely that meteoroids may have scattered dust from one to the other, influenced each other greatly as they developed to their present form. A major variation in the developmental patterns may have been due to the difference in mass of the two bodies and the consequent ability of the earth to amass an atmosphere. Because the two bodies shared so closely in their development, we may learn much about the earth by studying the moon.