Second moon may have collided with ours

Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 12:31 in Astronomy & Space

A collision with a smaller moon may explain why the terrains on the far and near sides of the moon are so differentThe remnants of a second moon that swung around the Earth billions of years ago may be splattered across the far side of our moon, scientists claim.The ancient moon is believed to have been created at the same time and followed a similar orbit to the moon we're familiar with today, but was only one third the size.After tens of millions of years of peaceful co-existence, the two moons appear to have crunched together in a gentle collision that left the smaller moon spread across the larger like a cosmic pancake.Researchers put forward the idea after computer simulations found that a collision with a second, sibling moon in Earth's early history might explain the longstanding puzzle of why the two faces of the moon differ so dramatically.While the...

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