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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

If memory serves me right, the Moons lack of an iron core was one of the arguments against its being an independently formed body that was subsequently captured by Earth. I'm not sure I understand how it's having such a core supports the impact hypothesis.

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Michael

Probably in that it suggests that the impacter gave the moon it's iron core. That's just my opinion, though. Could be very wrong.

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I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid...and I went ahead anyway. - Crow T. Robot

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

The impactor's core is supposed to have merged with the proto-Earth leaving the Moon without a substantial iron core: If the Moon formed like terrestrial planets, it would have a relatively large core.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

I understand the iron core, should it exist, would be very small. Ad the Moon is 1/80th of mass of the Earth, it would necessarily be rather small.

Presumably the impact event that created the Moon would have taken some iron from the Earth with it, as well as having a little of its own. Being in a molten state at formation, the iron would have formed a small core at the centre of the Moon.

If the Moon formed independently, it's iron core would presumably be much larger, and the crust less of an aggregate.

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

Exactly.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

Unless, of course, the Earth was in another orbit when the the kah-BOOOOM happened and the resultant duo settled into this one.

Then there's the theory that the mascons on the moon are iron meteorites. This goes back to the 60s.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...t/161/3842/680