Moon Was Formed In Hours, Not Years: Report

The Moon is thought to have been formed after a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object, called Theia. According to Big Splash, or the Theia Impact, the Moon was formed from the ejecta of a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized planet, approximately 4.5 billion years ago, in the Hadean eon.

But now, a simulation of the event created using supercomputer by NASA has shown that the Moon might have formed in just hours but not centuries after the matter resulting from the impact was released directly into the Earth’s orbit.

"This opens up a whole new range of possible starting places for the Moon’s evolution,” said Jacob Kegerreis, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center and lead author of the research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "On top of the big eye-opener that standard resolutions can give you misleading answers, it was extra exciting that the new results could include a tantalisingly Moon-like satellite in orbit."

Researchers explained that new simulation could explain some unsolved mysteries like the Moons tilted orbit away from Earths equator or even produce an early Moon that is not fully molten.