Molten Core Inside The Moon?

beggs writes: "The Times (free reg et al.) is running an article about the possibility of a molten core inside the moon and that this, if confirmed may lend support the the theory that the moon is the child of a violent collision between mother earth and some other heavenly body in the distance past."

Even if it does have a molten core

[ObviousGuy]

The plate tectonics that would have ensued from having an active core (like Earth's) has ceased, for quite a long time too.

Re:No way

[Transcendent]

What a lot of people are missing is the fact that the moon is in such an orbit that only one side faces us at any given time (look for yourself.... heh). This orbit is far to delicate for any captured rock, or huge chunk of earth that was smashed off by an asteroid could create, it had to have been that the moon was an actual part of the earth, but gave the earth a lop-sided form. So centripital (spelling?) force caused that chunk to rip off from the earth, creating the moon we have today.

(no, it doesn't have to be necessarily a chunk, but most likely a big scoop pf molten rock... from when the earth was in a molten state.)

Did you really think we thought a large object hit Earth, and ejected a perfectly spherical rock?

Well thats how everything started. Basically huge chunks of rock slammed together to make the planets, and over time, smaller ones filled in the gaps, the pressure created a molten core, and the core smoothed everything out.

Re:No way

[drudd]

What a lot of people are missing is the fact that the moon is in such an orbit that only one side faces us at any given time

Yes, this is true... it also has nothing to do with how the moon formed. Angular momentum transfer from tidal forces automatically forces an orbiting body into just such a configuration. It's called being tidally locked. This same process has caused the earth's rotation to slow, and to increase the average radius of the moon's orbit.

Doug