Ancient Aliens on the Moon Read Free

correct. However, there are three mechanical objections to the Lunar Fission Theory that would seem, on the surface anyway, to discredit it, at least to some degree.

    General comparison chart of the Earth-Moon system.
    The first objection to the fission theory is that the Earth-Moon system simply lacks the required angular momentum , or spin energy, for it to work. In order for a solid chunk of the Earth to break away in the equatorial region and spin off into space, the Earth-Moon system would have to have about twice as much of the spin energy it currently possesses. In order for the Earth to become unstable (and the resonant vibrations necessary to achieve fission to occur), a single day would have to have been about 3 hours long, rather than the current 24. Since angular momentum is assumed to be a constant, where did all this “missing” spin energy go?
    The second objection is that such an eruption would most likely be from the equatorial region of the Earth. If this were the case, then logically the Moon would orbit around the Earth’s equatorial plane, much like the planets orbit around the Sun’s plane of the ecliptic. Instead, we see that Moon’s orbital plane is tilted 28.5 degrees to the Earth’s equator.
    The third objection was that the newly broken away Moon would have had devastating tidal effects on the Earth, and possibly been broken apart as it passed the Earth’s destructive “Roche limit.” It is argued that no evidence of such tremendous tidal disruptions exists in the geologic record today.
    Despite all this, the Lunar Fission Theory remained popular well into the twentieth century. One fanciful account from a 1936 U.S. Office of Education script for a children’s radio program told the story this way:
    “FRIENDLY GUIDE: Have you heard that the moon once occupied the space now filled by the Pacific Ocean? Once upon a time—a billion or so years ago—when the Earth was still young—a remarkable romance developed between the Earth and the sun—according to some of our ablest scientists … In those days the Earth was a spirited maiden who danced about the princely sun—was charmed by him—yielded to his attraction, and became his bride … The sun’s attraction raised great tides upon the Earth’s surface … the huge crest of a bulge broke away with such momentum that it could not return to the body of mother Earth. And this is the way the moon was born!
    GIRL: How exciting!” 4
    However exciting, the Lunar Fission Theory began to get some competition by the early 20 th century. In 1909, an astronomer by the name of Thomas Jefferson Jackson See proposed a new idea; that the Moon had just been wandering by and was somehow “captured” by the Earth’s gravitational pull and settled into a stable orbit. This scenario, while possible, is highly improbable for a number of reasons. First, celestial objects tend to move through the vacuum of space pretty quickly. The Earth, for instance, travels at about 67,108 mph through space, which generates quite a bit of inertia, or momentum. How the Earth’s relatively weak gravitational field could capture another object moving past and pull it into a stable orbit is a problematic question with no easy answer. In an attempt to resolve it, the capture theory was modified so that the Earth in the distant past had a much denser atmosphere that was also much greater in volume. If this had been the case, the dense atmosphere could have helped slow down the wandering Moon, but so far no evidence supporting this proposal has ever emerged.
    And there were other problems. Even without the highly expanded atmosphere idea, the intricate celestial dance required to make the capture theory work would be incredibly complex and almost unimaginably coincidental. Since nothing like it has ever been observed anywhere in the universe, it remained a very unlikely possibility even before the astronauts landed on the Moon and brought back rock samples. It was really