A New Theory

The Moon's Many Orbits

A New Theory

The moon formed about 45 billion years ago likely in the aftermath of a giant collision between a Mars-size rock and the newborn Earth. Scientists at the University of Nevada Las Vegas have proposed a new theory that suggests the moon may have had many small siblings orbiting the Earth in the distant past.

Lagrangian Points

The new model suggests that moonlets may have once occupied the two Earth-Moon Lagrangian points regions in space where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Moon cancel each other out. These moonlets would have been about the size of asteroids and would have orbited the Earth in a stable configuration for millions of years.

Over time, however, the moonlets would have been gradually perturbed by the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Moon, and they would have eventually either crashed into the Earth or the Moon, or been ejected from the Earth-Moon system altogether.

Implications

If this theory is correct, it would have implications for our understanding of the early history of the Earth-Moon system. It would suggest that the moon was not the only object orbiting the Earth in the distant past, and that there may have been a whole population of moonlets that have since disappeared.

This theory could also help to explain some of the mysteries about the moon's surface. For example, the moon has a number of large craters that are not found on Earth. These craters may have been caused by the impacts of moonlets that were ejected from the Earth-Moon system.

Further research is needed to confirm this theory. However, it is an intriguing possibility that could shed new light on the early history of the Earth-Moon system.