Even since there was human life on the planet Earth, man has looked at the moon in the night sky and wondered how it was created. Scientists and astronomers have pondered this question for centuries as well.
There are three theories on the creation of the moon, the first having been put forward in the 1700’s. The Marquis de Laplace and Immanuel Kent suggested that the moon, along with the sun and the earth was created as a result of a gas cloud or nebula. According to this theory, a gas cloud contracted and as it did so, it ejected successive rings of nebulous matter that later condensed to form the planets and their satellite moons. This theory is no longer popular among scholars of astronomy, but a variation of it is still in existence.
This variation still holds with the existence of a gas cloud, but holds that as it condensed, it left large masses of nebulous matter behind. These were called protoplanets and in most cases contained smaller centers of condensation, which later condensed into the planets and moons. According to this theory, the moon is the twin sister of the Earth.
The second theory of how the moon was created was first put forth by George Darwin in 1898 and was further modified by Sir Harold Jeffreys, a British astronomer, in 1930. This theory suggests that the moon is the daughter of the Earth having been once part of the planet and separated into the atmosphere by the centrifugal forces of the Earth’s rotation. It claims that the moon was once located where the Pacific Ocean is now and that this body of water is the scar left behind. The journey to the moon in 1969 discredited this theory because the rocks brought back from the moon show no resemblance to the composition of any of the rocks on Earth.
The third theory of how the moon was created suggests that at one time, the moon was a planet itself. Due to an eccentric path of rotation around the Earth, it came into close contact with the gravitational forces of the Earth in which it became trapped. The problem with this theory is that while it offers an explanation for the existence of the moon, it does not offer an explanation of how it was created.
Many people have studied the atmosphere and the universe in an attempt to come up with a plausible explanation for the creation of the moon. However, thus far none have been able to stand up to the examination and criticism. Basically, the answer to the question “How was the moon created” is that we really do not know.
