Module 8 Activity Part 1: Isotopes

The Activity for this Module will be all about a new model for how the Moon may have formed.

The Moon formed shortly after the Earth did, around 4.5 billion years ago. As described in Section 9.4 of the textbook, the current best hypothesis for how this happened was through a giant impact.

In 2017-18, a new theoretical study was published by a group of scientists based around a research group at UC Davis, led by Prof. Sarah Stewart. She and her co-authors, such as Simon Lock, proposed a new variation on the giant-impact model.

In this Module's Activity,  you'll do a number of readings, and answer questions about them.

The parts of this Activity will be laid out as follows:

Part 1: You'll review part of Chapter 5 in the textbook, to refresh your knowledge of isotopes, and answer multiple-choice questions about them.

Part 2: You'll read an article that talks about some 21-century measurements of isotopes in the Earth and Moon, as well as about the original 1970s version of the giant-impact model, and answer multiple-choice questions.

Part 3: You'll read some articles about the new research by Stewart, Lock, and their colleagues, and write answers in your own words about something they call a synestia.

Part 1: What to Do

Go to your PDF-reader program and re-read the parts of Section 5.4 in the textbook titled Probing the Atom and The Atomic Nucleus, then answer the questions below.