The Great Impact Hypothesis

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Geologists had found that the moon was covered in a special kind of rock called a north recite. Scientists thought at one point, the moon could have been a giant magma ocean. This and other evidence meant that the moon couldn't have been created by the slow smushing of dust and crumbs over millions of years like scientists originally thought. There had to have been some epic, violent event.

In all our searching of the universe, we’ve never seen another moon like ours. It's big, it's weird, and it has played a huge role in shaping our planet. But how did we get it? Every possible story points to cataclysm.

This episode originally ran on June 15, 2022. It is part of our Lost Worlds series exploring scientific mysteries buried in the deep past.

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