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According to the prevailing hypothesis, a Mars-sized body known as Theia smashed into Earth billions of years ago. Earth survived this giant impact but the fragments from the crash gradually coalesced into the Moon that we see today.When scientists first looked at the samples from the Apollo 11, 12 and 16 missions their microscopes did not reveal traces of this impact but when Herwartz et al. recently analyzed fresh basalt samples from three Apollo landing sites and compared them with several samples of Earth's mantle they found that the oxygen isotope values measured in these lunar rocks differ significantly from the terrestrial material, supporting the giant-impact hypothesis.“If the Moon formed predominantly from the fragments of Theia, as predicted by most… Read more »