The Moon: What Is This Strange Thing Orbiting Earth?
Three theories have been postulated to explain the moon, none of them really worth their salt.
The first is that the moon was created from the same cosmic dust cloud at the same time
as Earth about 4.6 billion years ago. The second is that the moon was torn from the Pacific Basin
which later filled with water. The third, generally accepted by most scientists, is
that the moon was captured by the Earth as it wandered into our gravitational field.
The mechanics involved in such a celestial capture are enormous and even NASA scientist Dr. Robin Brett
admits, "It seems much easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon than its existence."
Over 99% of the rocks returned from the moon were found to be at least 90% older than the rocks found
on Earth, ranging from 3.6 billion to 5.3 billion years old. The area where the lunar
rocks were chosen was thought to be one of the youngest on the moon.
The oldest rocks found on Earth are only 3.7 billion years old, leading some scientists to conclude that
our moon may have been formed eons before our sun was born.
Another, even more perplexing puzzle is the discovery that the lunar soil is older by at least a billion
years than the rocks which rest upon it. This seems completely unexplained since soil has always been
understood to be the residue of eroded or decomposed rocks.
Analysis of the soil revealed that it is not rock residue and, therefore, has its origins somewhere else.
One of the strangest of all lunar enigmas is that when the lunar module ascent stages crashed onto the
surface of the moon, the moon rang like a hollow sphere, vibrations lasting for up to four hours!
While NASA officials are reluctant to postulate that the moon may be hollow, they cannot otherwise explain it.
After some difficulty, astronauts were able to drill into the extremely hard surface of the lunar
maria to recover samples of rare minerals such as beryllium, zirconium, titanium and yttrium which
were fused with surrounding rock at temperatures of about 4500°.
In addition to these rare minerals, American and Soviet probes recovered pure iron samples. These iron
particles have not oxidized, even after two decades of exposure to Earth's atmosphere. Although there
is an iron pillar of unknown origin and age in New Delhi, India that has also never rusted,
scientists are unable to explain it.
Uranium, thorium and potassium samples were found to be unusually radioactive. Using thermal equipment,
astronauts discovered that heat flow near the Apennine Range was so great that scientists on Earth
were convinced the area was ready to melt and that the moon's core must be very hot. The core is
not hot, however, and, indeed, if it has a core at all, it is quite cold.
In addition to being extremely radioactive, the amount of material discovered is quite great, leaving
scientists to wonder about its origin. If it came from the interior of the moon, how did it get to the surface?
Since some scientists agree it could not have come from the interior (since the moon appears to be a hollow sphere), how did all this radioactive material find its way to the surface of the moon and when did it happen?