TNRTB Archive – Retained for reference information
Scientists studying metals in the moon have found additional evidence for the fine-tuned impact event (wherein a Mars-sized collider struck Earth) that formed the moon. Earlier research to determine a precise date for the formation of the moon using long half-life radioisotopes had determined the date to be only between 4.56 and 4.29 billion years ago. Recent research by a team of European scientists, looking at the short half-life radioisotope system hafnium-tungsten (Hf-W), determined the moon formation date to be 4.527 +/- 0.010 billion years ago. This date is 30-50 million years after the origin of the solar system, including the asteroids and Mars. Therefore, this result confirms that the moon’s formation is a unique event as required by the giant impactor hypothesis. The many just-right features that comprise the lunar origin seem no accident of evolution.
Thorsten Kleine et al., “Hf-W Chronometry of Lunar Metals and the Age and Early Differentiation of the Moon,” Science 310 (2005): 1671-74.
