Question about the moon?

Question

I read this from wikipedia:

How the Earth's Atmosphere was made:

About 4.4 billion years ago, the surface had cooled enough to form a crust, still heavily populated with volcanoes which released steam, carbon dioxide, and ammonia. This led to the early "second atmosphere", which was primarily carbon dioxide and water vapor, with some nitrogen but virtually no oxygen.

Remember: The moon like the Earth resides in the habital zone of the solar system.

I'm not sure if it could support a core strong enough to create a magnosphere to block out solary rays, or if the core cooled just as fast as the surface but...

If the moon was made from the earth and water has recently been found to of existed on the moon along with volcanic activity, does that mean that the moon could of possibly supported an atmopshere in it's early development?

Answer 1

I dont like how people always say that the Moons low gravity cannot hold onto any atmosphere.  Titan isnt all that much larger than the Moon, yet has an atmosphere 1.5 times that of Earth!!!!    But if you consider how the Moon formed (via Theia), then most of the Debee would have fallen back to Earth and the Moons atmosphere would be very thin to begin with, and then radiated away due to proximity to the Sun and Earth.  The biggest hindrance of a large atmosphere on the Moon is that is was geologically inactive nearly from birth.  This gave it little "volcanic gases" to create an atmosphere to being with.

Answer 2

Actually there isn't a good theory of how the moon was created, so you can't really even ask that question.  Also, when was water found to have existed on the moon?  That's a HUGE claim.

Answer 3

Indeed! The moon could've had more of an atmosphere. Currently, it does have a very, very tenuous atmosphere, but it's mostly comprised of venting of gas from it's crust. The moon has no magnetic field to protect itself, so any atmosphere it may have had was blown into space by the solar wind. Furthermore, the lunar gravity being much less than on Earth, didn't help much as far as keeping the atmosphere.

Answer 4

I don't recall water being found on the moon?  I know they have found the possibility of water on Mars

Answer 5

Guess it also depends on when water started to appear on Earth when the moon was formed.

Answer 6

There is a few things you have to know:

1, the moon didn't form from earth. It is believed it formed from the collision of a smaller planet and earth (like a comet), the debris which floated around after the collision may have formed the moon, otherwise it formed at the same time as the earth.

2. Oxygen isotopes on Earth and on the Moon are identical, which suggests that the Earth and Moon formed at the same distance from the Sun, so the moon didn't came from another galaxy, it formed in ours and close to earth.

3. The low gravity of the moon shows that shows that it does not have a substantial iron core like the Earth does (super heated metallic fluid moving at constant speed creates gravity).

4. To support an atmosphere you need to be able to retain the gases produced in your planet, since the moon doesn't have the iron core, it has low gravity, and the gases did not concentrate enough to form an atmosphere, rather they likely just flew to space. Water in the moon is ice, not gas or liquid.

I'm not a physicist or galaxy expert, but this is to the best of my knowledge.

Answer 7

i dont care

Answer 8

Yes, but its low gravity could not hold onto it.

Answer 9

Atmosphere retention depends on two things - the temperature of the atmospheric gases (which dictates their avergae speed) and the gravity at the surface.

The moon is small and less dense than the Earth - so its surface gravity is low, but since it's at about the same distance from the sun, the gases in the atmosphere would have the same temperature. Low gravity means low escape velocity - the gas atoms on the moon would easily achieve escape velocity - and hence escape!

Even if it had a magnetic field it couldn;t retain much of an atmosphere.

As for how the moon formed - there was news today about some lunar volcanic glass that contains water that is calling the current formation hypothesis into question!