Nuclear explosion may have given birth to the Moon

Washington, January 30 (ANI): A team of scientists has proposed a new theory regarding the formation of the Moon, which suggests that a massive nuclear explosion that occurred at the edge of Earth's core might have led to the formation of the natural satellite.

According to a report in Discovery News, some scientists are of the opinion that a massive nuclear explosion occurred at the edge of Earth's core, flinging red-hot, liquid rock into space.The orbiting detritus gradually congealed into what is now our planet's lone satellite - the Moon.

Most scientists believe that the Moon formed from the debris left over when a Mars-sized object hit our newly-formed planet around 4.5 billion years ago.

This is based on several modeling studies that provide a pile of evidence in favor of the idea.

But, there are some loopholes in this theory.

For one, the Moon's chemistry is very similar to Earth's, which makes one wonder that in a titanic impact like the one proposed, a good portion of the offending object would be melted, vaporized, and incorporated into the wreckage that eventually formed the Moon.

But if scientists were to reject the earlier theory and accept the nuclear explosion hypothesis, the question then raises that how do you get a nuclear bomb to go off in the middle of the planet?

According to researchers supporting the new theory, as the molten Earth spun, radioactive thorium and uranium accumulated at the boundary between the core and mantle in large enough quantities to spark a runaway fission reaction.

Heat and energy built up and formed a nuclear jet that pushed giant globs of molten rock into space, which eventually might have formed into the Moon.

A way to test the idea would be for scientists to look for isotopic signatures on the Moon left over from when the "georeactor" exploded.

If they are there, it's a good chance that Earth once went critical in a huge way, and our ghostly galleon was tossed into the heavens by the world's first nuclear detonation. (ANI)