[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Cute fantasy; but, hardly realistic. A large mass would have reached >escape velocity and been sent into orbit. After all, this is allegedly >how our moon was formed.
I do not follow. Do you mean the incoming object would have bounced? Or that some of the expelled rock would have reached escape velocity? I think the voiceover said that some of it did. If the incoming object strikes at an angle I suppose it would send a large chunk into orbit. This source says that the body that impacted to form the moon had roughly the mass of Mars, a lot more than a 300 km object. Would a 300 km object coming in at an angle would form a small moon? http://www.psi.edu/projects/moon/moon.html - Jed
