Why didn't Moon become a mini Earth?

Question

I know moon has no atmosphere, but since it's a part of earth that flew off when earth was impacted, it should have the same chemical components that made up earth, so with the same conditions n components why didn't it support life just like earth did?

Answer 1

no water.. no air to breath.. no basic necessity of life

Answer 2

The moon was at a disadvantage from the start.

Theory goes that it formed from the remnants of an earth collison with a proto planet. The earth's mantle made up most of the material. Because of that, the moon had no chance to form a core and the rest is history.

No core, no internal heat, no atmosphere.

I believe its mass is also too small to be able to retain any atmosphere able to support life like us humans.

Answer 3

It's all just a theory. If it came from the Earth, how did we stay a big ball, wouldn't there be a section gone? If it did happen like that, after it seperated from this planet, all the water and life supporters would of flown out into space, leaving the mass dry, therefore not being able to have the oxygen to create an atmosphere!!

Answer 4

It's not massive enough to hold an atmosphere.

Jarod C:

"If it came from the Earth, how did we stay a big ball, wouldn't there be a section gone?"

No, gravity would have pulled earth back into a spherical object, the same way it pulled the moon into a sphere.

Answer 5

The reason why the Moon did not become a mini Earth is because it does not have enough gravity to hold a sufficient atmosphere.Also there is no water to maintain life.

(Perhaps in the future if they invent powerful Grav Plates they can make a planetoid out of the Moon)

Answer 6

no atmosphere

Answer 7

The moon, being so much smaller wouldn't have enough gravity to hold on to any atmosphere (gases) it might have very briefly had. Anything that might have become an atmosphere just drifted off into space.

This is related to the reason that the "gas giants" are gas, they're giant;) with lots of gravity and they are far enough from the sun to not have their gas heated up and dissipated away.

Good question:)

Answer 8

1.  Because the moon has less gravity and no magnetic field, it won't hold an atmosphere.  

2.  The moon definitely has different chemistry than the Earth (even pre-life Earth).  

Answer 9

The biggest problem for the moon is its size!

Whether a planet can retain an atmosphere, and what that atmosphere is made of, depends on gravity and temperature.

Since the moon is the same distance from the sun as the Earth (more or less), you can consider to to be more or less the same temperature.

But the moon is smaller, which means that gravity at the surface is weaker and thus escape velocity is lower.

So the atoms and molecules that make up an atmosphere (e.g. O2, N2, CO2 etc) can achieve the escape velocity more easily, and so it doesn;t have an atmosphere.

Basically the speed that atoms/molecules move is dictated by temperature. The hotter a gas is, the faster the particles are moving.

So even tho the moon ought to be similar to the earth, it's low escape velocity means that the same gases that made up the earth's early atmopshere won;t stay on the moon.

Answer 10

a long time ago the moon was like the earth, full of life. but when it gave birth to earth it lost much of its mass. it gave all its energy to the earth and it became entirely dead.

Answer 11

because it can't support life, it have no atmosphere so why are scientists going to call it a "mini earth" if it don't even have any characteristics same to the earth, it can't support life because the place where the earth is, is the perfect angle for an atmosphere to exist, making the basic necessity of life possible.