How close was the Moon to the Earth when it formed?
Given the fact that the Moon is moving away from the Earth, could you please tell me how close the moon was when it was at it’s closest to Earth, presumably when it formed? I am curious to know how big the moon would have looked at that time. Also, do you know if the rate of departure has ALWAYS been constant? The Moon is thought to have formed when an object roughly the size of Mars hit the Earth. The impact was so violent that it threw large amounts of the Earth’s mantle into orbit. This material evenually coalesced and formed the Moon. It is not easy to estimate how far away from the Earth the Moon was when it formed, but simulations suggest is was about 3-5 times the radius of the Earth, or about 19-30 thousand km. (The Moon is currently about 384,000 km away from Earth or 3-4 thousand times further away than this.) The Moon probably couldn’t have formed closer than 3 Earth radii because tidal forces from the Earth would just pull it apart again, and it is unlikely that the impact
