The Moon's Creation May Not Have Been that Simple

And by simple, I mean the standing theory that the Moon was created when the early Earth was smacked by a similarly-sized object, splashing out large amounts of debris, which eventually coalesced into the Moon we know today. This theory does a good job of explaining why the Moon's orbit and the Earth's rotation time are getting longer, but it does have one big flaw. Namely, the whole "rogue planet coming up and hitting the Earth in just the right manner not to destroy it but also splashing out a bunch of debris to form the moon" is an unlikely scenario at best. It's not so much that it couldn't happen, but there may be a more plausible explanation.

To be honest, "Earth gets hit with many smaller objects instead of one really big one" isn't a drastic change in the theory. But it does make a lot more sense. The early solar system was a chaotic place, and a lot of objects hit a lot of other objects. Having a bunch of objects a few hundred or a thousand miles across hitting the Earth over the course of a few million years is perfectly natural considering the state of the early solar system. This isn't a new idea, but the main problem was that it didn't explain why the Moon and Earth were made of basically the same stuff, a problem that the giant impact theory covers. However, the scientists behind this new multiple-impact research believe that over time, the chemical imbalances would work themselves out. It's an interesting take on a surprisingly simple question: Where did the Moon come from?

In other space news, it's the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the very first exoplanets. Old PSR B1257+12 doesn't get a whole lot of credit, since it's a pulsar and the three planets surrounding it are constantly bathed in pulsar radiation (which is quite strong, if you don't know), but they were the very first. If nothing else, it showed that extrasolar planets do actually exist. I mean, of course they existed, but actual evidence is always better than theory. Fun fact, one of the two astronomers responsible for this discovery, Alex Wolszczan, is a professor at Penn State, and I actually was in one of his classes. It was basic astronomy, so it wasn't anything too interesting, but still, neat little tidbit there.