The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be
eBook - ePub

The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be

  1. 240 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be

About this book

The first popular book to explain the dramatic theory behind the Moon's genesis

This lively science history relates one of the great recent breakthroughs in planetary astronomy-a successful theory of the birth of the Moon. Science journalist Dana Mackenzie traces the evolution of this theory, one little known outside the scientific community: a Mars-sized object collided with Earth some four billion years ago, and the remains of this colossal explosion-the Big Splat-came together to form the Moon. Beginning with notions of the Moon in ancient cosmologies, Mackenzie relates the fascinating history of lunar speculation, moving from Galileo and Kepler to George Darwin (son of Charles) and the Apollo astronauts, whose trips to the lunar surface helped solve one of the most enigmatic mysteries of the night sky: who hung the Moon?

Dana Mackenzie (Santa Cruz, CA) is a freelance science journalist. His articles have appeared in such magazines as Science, Discover, American Scientist, The Sciences, and New Scientist.

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Yes, you can access The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be by Dana Mackenzie in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Physical Sciences & Astronomy & Astrophysics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Introduction: Genesis Revised
  6. 1 A Highly Practical Stone
  7. 2 The Stone Star
  8. 3 Kepler Laughed
  9. 4 The Clockwork Solar System
  10. 5 Daughter Moon
  11. 6 Captive Moon
  12. 7 Sister Moon
  13. 8 Renaissance and Controversy
  14. 9 “A Little Science on the Moon”
  15. 10 When Worlds Collide
  16. 11 The Kona Consensus
  17. 12 Introducing Theia
  18. Appendix: Did We Really Go to the Moon?
  19. Glossary
  20. References
  21. Acknowledgments
  22. Index