Formation of Our Moon

The precursors to the current four rocky planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars - appear to have been dozens of smaller bodies are known as "planetary embryos". | According to the giant impact hypothesis, our moon formed as the result of the last of a series of "giant impact" mergers between planetary embryos that eventually formed the Earth. | For more than 30 years, the prevailing view of the formation of our moon has been the " giant impact hypothesis ". | In this last collision, one embryo was nearly Earth-sized and the other approximately Mars-sized.