Module 8 Activity Part 3: The Synestia

In this third part of the Module 8 Activity, you'll read some articles about the new version of the giant-impact model that has been proposed by Prof. Sarah Stewart, Simon Lock, and other researchers.

When new research is published by a professor at a university, the university's press office usually organizes a "press release" about it. The actual research paper is published in a technical research journal, but the university generally sends out a press release to the media, and publishes an article on their webpage. Other articles may appear on the web, such as on the researchers' professional websites, or on the websites of organizations like the American Geophysical Union. I've drawn from these type of sources to give you a summary of the Stewart, Lock, et al. 2017/18 synestia model.

Here are the articles you should read before you write your answers to the questions below:

Notes to the media, which were given out before the UC Davis press release about the research

A web article from UC Davis about the research

A web article from the American Geophysical Union about the research

Those articles should be enough to answer the questions below. If you happen to feel like digging into the subject some more, you might find these sources interesting:

A webpage by Simon Lock about the formation of the Moon

A webpage by Simon Lock about synestias

A public-access version of the real-deal research paper, hosted on a site at Cornell University called "the arXiv" (pronounced like "archive", I think)