Classify this story under “funky science news”.

Earth may once have had more than one moon, most probably two more, NASA scientists think.

Prevailing scientific consensus holds that the existing Moon was formed when a Mars-sized planet collided with the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was very young.

So much matter would have been thrown up into space that it recollected under its own gravity to form the Moon, which for millions of years would have glowed red-hot as the molten rock from the planetary collision cooled.

However, researchers Jack J. Lissauer of NASA's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., and John E. Chambers of the Carnegie Institution of Washington figure quite a bit of that ejected matter would have recollected into two other small moons at the so-called "Lagrangian points" or "Trojan points."
Those are fixed places in the Moon's orbit around the Earth where the gravity of both large bodies would keep smaller objects in stable positions.

Odds are that such moons would have lasted at least 100 million years, and possibly as long as a billion years, depending upon their size.

But before you have some image of three large lunar bodies in the sky, please understand that their size and distance from the planet would have left them appearing as nothing more than bright stars or planets in the sky – nothing like our single remaining moon.

Posted by: Greg at 10:53 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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