Scientists have been trying to understand how the moon formed for decades.
We're getting a lot closer thanks to simulations and computers.
The Moon is thought to have been formed after a Mars-sized object hit the Earth around 4.5 billion years ago.
The Moon as we know it today was formed by a debris cloud that coalesced over months or years.
One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle is the fact that the rocks returned by astronauts were very similar to the rocks on Earth.
The Moon may have formed in a matter of hours after Earth's and Theia's collision, according to a new simulation by researchers at Durham University.
The team used cutting edge computers to make simulations of hundreds of different impacts. Two floating objects are captured in a lava-spewing dance in the video.
The researchers concluded that a Moon-like satellite formed in a short period of time thanks to the improved resolution of their simulations. Less of the material resulted from the collision was molten.
It makes sense that the Moon may be made up of more Earth material since they have similar composition.
The theory suggests that the Moon has an only partially molten core, which explains its thin crust and tilt of its axis.
Jacob Kegerreis, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, is the lead author of a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"So, on top of the big eye-opener that standard resolutions can give you misleading answers, it was even more exciting that the new results could include a moon-like satellite in the sky," he said.
There is a new chapter in our quest to understand where the Earth's closest neighbor came from.
"The more we learn about how the Moon came to be, the more we discover about the evolution of our own Earth," said a researcher at Durham University and co-author of the paper.
Scientists theorize that a giant impact could have formed the Moon more quickly.
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