The Moon Is 100 Million Years Younger Than Thought | Space.com - 0 views
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new research suggests.
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new analyses of lunar rocks suggest that the moon, which likely coalesced from the debris blasted into space by this monster impact, is actually between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old
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make the moon 100 million years younger than previously thought, could reshape scientists' understanding of the early Earth
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, if the Earth was already differentiated prior to the giant impact, would the impact have blown off the primordial atmosphere that formed from this earlier epoch of Earth history
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analysis of meteorites that came from the asteroid Vesta and eventually rained down on Earth reveals that the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) space rock is 4.565 billion years old
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Vesta cooled relatively quickly and is too small to have retained enough internal heat to drive further melting or volcanism
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as they refine their techniques and technology improves. And those estimates are pushing the moon's formation date farther forward in time.
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The moon is thought to have harbored a global ocean of molten rock shortly after its dramatic formation
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Currently, the most precisely determined age for the lunar rocks that arose from that ocean is 4.360 billion years
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here on Earth, scientists have found signs in several locations of a major melting event that occurred around 4.45 billion years ago
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evidence is building that the catastrophic collision that formed the moon and reshaped Earth occurred around that time, rather than 100 million years or so before