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."

Energy

[dingo]

IF we had a moon colony how would a molten core compare to solar cells as an energy source?

Might be worth looking at.

Re:No way

[CheshireCatCO]

Darwin's (no, George Darwin, Charles's son) idea about planetary fission to form the Moon doesn't work. There's insufficent angular momentum in the system to make it work. The giant impact model is the ONLY model that makes sense right now. (The tidal locking of the Moon causing it to show us one face at all times has nothing to do with anything.)

In fact, the original poster is correct: if the Moon formed in a giant impact, it appears that it should be almost all rock akin to Earth's mantle. The iron and other metallic elements would have sunk into the interior of the Earth, being lost to the disk of debris what would go on to form the Moon.

Re:No way

[shrikel]

most likely a big scoop pf molten rock... from when the earth was in a molten state

The earth IS in a molten state as we speak! There's a little crust on the outside, but, proportionally speaking, it's many many times thinner than the shell of an egg. The earth could be hit by a large celestial object TODAY, (even a 200-mile wide blob of frozen ammonium, which is VERY cold) and tomorrow you wouldn't be able to tell that the earth had EVER had a crust. It's not that the force of the impact would melt the entire crust, it's just that it would break the shell and let all the hot insides come out and melt the crust.