The origin of Kamo’oalewa
And according to a new study in Nature, we may at last know how it was formed.
The moon’s been getting bombarded by space rocks for billions of years, resulting in all manner of lunar debris getting ejected into space (nearly 500 bits of which have made it to the surface of the Earth as meteorites). Kamo’oalewa is one such piece of lunar rubble that spiraled away from the moon.
But rather than landing on Earth or simply tumbling off into the void, it found itself a quasi-satellite in its own right.
10
188 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
I never knew about this quasi-moon. If you are into space and space exploration I highly recommend Jeffrey Kluger's weekly newsletter from Time.com.
“
The idea is part of this collection:
Learn more about scienceandnature with this collection
Basic survival skills
How to prioritize needs in survival situations
How to adapt to extreme situations
Related collections
Similar ideas to The origin of Kamo’oalewa
Phases of the Moon
We see different parts of the Moon light up at different times of the month. This is because the Moon is at different positions in its orbit around Earth relative to the Sun.
- A full Moon is when the Moon, Earth and Sun are lined up. The sunlight shines on the whole l...
Nuking the Moon
If we detonated a nuclear weapon on the moon, the lack of an atmosphere on the moon would mean no mushroom cloud or shockwave, but anyone viewing the blast would likely get a fatal dose of ionizing radiation.
The explosion would probably cause moon debris ejected into space that will also...
Space as a garbage dump
For many ages, space was pristine. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, but when the batteries died, the aluminium satellite marked the end of an unspoiled era.
According to NASA, the space above Earth is now the world's largest garbage dump. It consis...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates