The giant impact between the Earth and the body that became the Moon
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This working paper advances, and then quantitatively tests, a single hypothesis: that one soft, shallow-angle giant impact between the Earth and the body that became the Moon — followed by the Moon’s capture into orbit — could account for a broad set of terrestrial and lunar features, from the Tibet–Himalaya massif (read as an impact scar) and its proposed lunar twin, the South Pole–Aitken basin, to the division of the lithosphere into plates, volcanism and seismicity, the fossil and fossil-fuel record, and the Earth’s precession, nutation and the Moon’s libration. The hypothesis is set against the current state of accepted knowledge (Part II) and argued explicitly as the author’s own case (Part III). Rather than defend the idea rhetorically, the paper supplies the physics needed to falsify it. First-principles annexes quantify the Roche-limit tidal disruption of a Moon-sized body (~28 % of its mass stripped per grazing pass), the energy budget and dimensional analysis of the contact, the dynamical “lock” that forbids gravitational capture of so large a body through any known soft-dissipation channel, the shock-pressure signatures a 2,500 km basin must carry, and the luni-solar origin of present-day precession and nutation. A companion Öpik-geometry orbital simulator (encounter geometry and contact detection) and two spreadsheet models (tidal disruption; precession–nutation) reproduce the key figures. The outcome is deliberately two-sided. The quantitative tests support several sub-claims (a hard, early-cooled Moon; a non-destructive South Pole–Aitken impactor) but close others decisively (the ~4.25 Ga versus 66 Ma dating gap, the continuous stratigraphic record, the capture dynamics, and present precession/nutation as sustained luni-solar effects rather than impact relics). A PRO/CON assessment (Annex C) sorts every objection into refuted, granted, or still open, and the paper states falsifiable predictions. It is offered not as a settled result but as a falsifiable research program: a precise map of the obstacles, and of the tests that would close them.Figures bearing a Google / Google Earth / Google Maps mark are © Google and its data providers, reproduced under Google’s terms and not covered by the CC BY 4.0 license.
Author: DRAGU born AILIOAE, Adrian
Language: English
Topic: Astro and Planetary Science
Subfield: Space and Planetary Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223044373