Abstract
The Moon is a unique planetary body with low bulk metallic iron content and a core–mantle–crust structure. Multiple observations contraindicate the cogenetic, capture, and fission hypotheses for the origin of the Moon and suggest a cataclysmic origin. This strengthens the giant impact hypothesis as the most plausible hypothesis for the formation of the Moon. Although the giant impact hypothesis has been rigorously studied for a vast range of scenarios, the uncertainty remains regarding the most plausible one. In addition, the early thermal evolution and planetary-scale differentiation from the giant impact perspective are poorly understood. Several unresolved issues exist, such as the initial average temperature of accreting moonlets, the depth of the initial magma ocean, the role of convection, and the cooling and iron-core formation timescales. We present a novel lunar model for the early thermal evolution, convective magma ocean evolution, and core-mantle differentiation based on the giant impact hypothesis to access some of these uncertainties. This model numerically incorporates the features associated with local Rayleigh numbers for convection, the gravitational energy released by planetary-scale differentiation, and the numerical dependencies of physical and thermodynamical quantities on parameters like depth, temperature, pressure, density, viscosity, and crystal mass fraction. In order to have an early iron-core formation, the accreting moonlets should have a minimum temperature of 1900 K. This can serve as a stringent constraint on the giant impact models if the core was formed early through Stokes' flow. This implies a ≥1000 km deep fully molten initial magma ocean which cooled down to rheological critical temperature profile over hundred thousand years.
Research highlights
-
1.
Local Rayleigh numbers in convection yield cooling timescales of 0.01–0.1Ma.
-
2.
Temperature of accreting moonlets ≥ 1900 K is required for early core formation.
-
3.
A ~1000 km deep initial lunar magma ocean is capable of early core formation.
-
4.
Early core-formation leads to fully molten core, potent for producing geomagnetism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Datasets generated in this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/2k9b98zb24.1, an open-source online data repository hosted at Mendeley Data (Goyal and Sahijpal 2022).
References
Antonangeli D, Morard G, Schmerr N C, Komabayashi T, Krisch M, Fiquet G and Fei Y 2015 Toward a mineral physics reference model for the Moon’s core; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112 3916–3919, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417490112.
Barr A C 2016 On the origin of Earth’s Moon; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 121 1573–1601, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JE005098.
Benz W, Slattery W L and Cameron A G W 1986 The origin of the Moon and the single-impact hypothesis I; Icarus 66 515–535, https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(86)90088-6.
Bhatia G K and Sahijpal S 2017 Did 26Al and impact-induced heating differentiate Mercury?; Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 52 295–319, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12789.
Bhatia G K and Sahijpal S 2016 The early thermal evolution of Mars; Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 51 138–154, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12573.
Breuer D and Moore W B 2015 Dynamics and thermal history of the terrestrial planets, the Moon, and Io; In: Treatise on Geophysics; 2nd edn, Vol. 10, Elsevier, pp. 255–305, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53802-4.00173-1.
Buono A S and Walker D 2011 The Fe-rich liquidus in the Fe–FeS system from 1 bar to 10 GPa; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 75 2072–2087, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2011.01.030.
Cameron A G W and Ward W R 1976 The origin of the Moon (abstract); In: Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, pp. 120–122.
Canup R M 2012 Forming a Moon with an Earth-like composition via a giant impact; Science 338 1052–1055, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1226073.
Canup R M 2004 Dynamics of lunar formation; Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 42 441–475, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.astro.41.082201.113457.
Canup R M and Asphaug E 2001 Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth’s formation; Nature 412 708–712, https://doi.org/10.1038/35089010.
Canup R M, Visscher C, Salmon J and Fegley B 2015 Lunar volatile depletion due to incomplete accretion within an impact-generated disk; Nat. Geosci. 8 918–921, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2574.
Castaing B, Gunaratne G, Heslot F, Kadanoff L, Libchaber A, Thomae S, Wu X-Z, Zaleski S and Zanetti G 1989 Scaling of hard thermal turbulence in Rayleigh-Bénard convection; J. Fluid Mech. 204 1–30, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112089001643.
Charlier B, Grove T L, Namur O and Holtz F 2018 Crystallisation of the lunar magma ocean and the primordial mantle-crust differentiation of the Moon; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 234 50–69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2018.05.006.
Chase M W Jr 1998 NIST-JANAF Thermochemical tables, 4th edn, In: Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, Monograph 9; American Institute of Physics, New York, https://doi.org/10.18434/T42S31.
Chudinovskikh L and Boehler R 2007 Eutectic melting in the system Fe–S to 44 GPa; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 257 97–103, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2007.02.024.
Cisowski S M, Collinson D W, Runcorn S K, Stephenson A and Fuller M 1983 A review of lunar paleointensity data and implications for the origin of lunar magnetism; J. Geophys. Res. 88 A691–A704, https://doi.org/10.1029/JB088iS02p0A691.
Ćuk M, Hamilton D P, Lock S J and Stewart S T 2016 Tidal evolution of the Moon from a high-obliquity, high-angular-momentum Earth; Nature 539 402–406, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19846.
Ćuk M and Stewart S T 2012 Making the Moon from a fast-spinning earth: A giant impact followed by resonant despinning; Science 338 1047–1052, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1225542.
Desch S J, Cook J C, Doggett T C and Porter S B 2009 Thermal evolution of Kuiper belt objects, with implications for cryovolcanism; Icarus 202 694–714, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2009.03.009.
Elardo S M, Draper D S and Shearer C K Jr 2011 Lunar magma ocean crystallisation revisited: Bulk composition, early cumulate mineralogy, and the source regions of the highlands Mg-suite; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 75 3024–3045, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2011.02.033.
Elkins-Tanton L T, Burgess S and Yin Q Z 2011 The lunar magma ocean: Reconciling the solidification process with lunar petrology and geochronology; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 304 326–336, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2011.02.004.
Giordano D, Russell J K and Dingwell D B 2008 Viscosity of magmatic liquids: A model; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 271 123–134, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2008.03.038.
Gomes R, Levison H F, Tsiganis K and Morbidelli A 2005 Origin of the cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment period of the terrestrial planets; Nature 435 466–469, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03676.
Goyal V and Sahijpal S 2022 Data for: Early thermal evolution and planetary differentiation of the Moon: A giant impact perspective; Mendeley Data v1, https://doi.org/10.17632/2k9b98zb24.1.
Gupta G and Sahijpal S 2010 Differentiation of Vesta and the parent bodies of other achondrites; J. Geophys. Res. 115 E08001, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JE003525.
Hartmann W K and Davis D R 1975 Satellite-sized planetesimals and lunar origin; Icarus 24 504–515, https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(75)90070-6.
Hauri E H, Saal A E, Rutherford M J and Van Orman J A 2015 Water in the Moon’s interior: Truth and consequences; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 409 252–264, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.10.053.
Heslot F, Castaing B and Libchaber A 1987 Transitions to turbulence in helium gas; Phys. Rev. A 36 5870–5873, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.36.5870.
Hofmeister A M 1999 Mantle values of thermal conductivity and the geotherm from phonon lifetimes; Science 283 1699–1706, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.283.5408.1699.
Jackson A P and Wyatt M C 2012 Debris from terrestrial planet formation: The Moon-forming collision; Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 425 657–679, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21546.x.
Kaula W M 1979 Thermal evolution of Earth and Moon growing by planetesimal impacts; J. Geophys. Res. 84 999–1008, https://doi.org/10.1029/JB084iB03p00999.
Kruijer T S and Kleine T 2017 Tungsten isotopes and the origin of the Moon; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 475 15–24, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2017.07.021.
Lin Y, Tronche E J, Steenstra E S and Van Westrenen W 2017 Evidence for an early wet Moon from experimental crystallisation of the lunar magma ocean; Nat. Geosci. 10 14–18, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2845.
Lock S J and Stewart S T 2017 The structure of terrestrial bodies: Impact heating, corotation limits, and synestias; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 122 950–982, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JE005239.
Lock S J, Stewart S T, Petaev M I, Leinhardt Z, Mace M T, Jacobsen S B and Cuk M 2018 The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial Synestia; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 123 910–951, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JE005333.
Longhi J 2006 Petrogenesis of picritic mare magmas: Constraints on the extent of early lunar differentiation; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70 5919–5934, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2006.09.023.
Lugmair G W and Shukolyukov A 1998 Early solar system timescales according to 53Mn–53Cr systematics; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 62 2863–2886, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7037(98)00189-6.
Maurice M, Tosi N, Schwinger S, Breuer D and Kleine T 2020 A long-lived magma ocean on a young Moon; Sci. Adv. 6 eaba8949, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba8949.
Melosh H J 2014 New approaches to the Moon’s isotopic crisis; Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 372 20130168, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2013.0168.
Mojzsis S J, Brasser R, Kelly N M, Abramov O and Werner S C 2019 Onset of giant planet migration before 4480 million years ago; Astrophys. J. 881 44, https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab2c03.
Morard G, Bouchet J, Rivoldini A, Antonangeli D, Roberge M, Boulard E, Denoeud A and Mezouar M 2018 Liquid properties in the Fe–FeS system under moderate pressure: Tool box to model small planetary cores; Am. Mineral. 103 1770–1779, https://doi.org/10.2138/am-2018-6405.
Neumann W, Breuer D and Spohn T 2014 Differentiation of Vesta: Implications for a shallow magma ocean; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 395 267–280, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.03.033.
Neveu M, Desch S J and Castillo-Rogez J C 2015 Core cracking and hydrothermal circulation can profoundly affect Ceres’ geophysical evolution; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 120 123–154, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JE004714.
Pahlevan K and Stevenson D J 2007 Equilibration in the aftermath of the lunar-forming giant impact; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 262 438–449, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2007.07.055.
Perera V, Jackson A P, Elkins-Tanton L T and Asphaug E 2018 Effect of reimpacting debris on the solidification of the lunar magma ocean; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 123 1168–1191, https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JE005512.
Qaddah B, Monteux J, Clesi V, Bouhifd M A and Le Bars M 2019 Dynamics and stability of an iron drop falling in a magma ocean; Phys. Earth Planet. Int. 289 75–89, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2019.02.006.
Rapp J F and Draper D S 2018 Fractional crystallisation of the lunar magma ocean: Updating the dominant paradigm; Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 53 1432–1455, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13086.
Ricard Y, Šrámek O and Dubuffet F 2009 A multi-phase model of runaway core-mantle segregation in planetary embryos; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 284 144–150, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2009.04.021.
Richet P 1987 Heat capacity of silicate glasses; Chem. Geol. 62 111–124, https://doi.org/10.1016/0009-2541(87)90062-3.
Roy A, Wright J T and Sigurðsson S 2014 Earthshine on a young Moon: Explaining the lunar farside highlands; Astrophys. J. Lett. 788 L42, https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/788/2/L42.
Saal A E, Hauri E H, Cascio M L, Van Orman J A, Rutherford M C and Cooper R F 2008 Volatile content of lunar volcanic glasses and the presence of water in the Moon’s interior; Nature 454 192–195, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07047.
Sahijpal S and Goyal V 2018 Thermal evolution of the early Moon; Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 53 2193–2211, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13119.
Sahijpal S, Ivanova M A, Kashkarov L L, Korotkova N N, Migdisova L F, Nazarov M A and Goswami J N 1995 26Al as a heat source for early melting of planetesimals: Results from isotopic studies of meteorites; Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. (Earth Planet. Sci.) 104 555–567, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02839296.
Salmon J and Canup R M 2014 Accretion of the Moon from non-canonical discs; Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 372 20130256, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2013.0256.
Silano G, Sreenivasan K R and Verzicco R 2010 Numerical simulations of Rayleigh–Bénard convection for Prandtl numbers between 10–1 and 104 and Rayleigh numbers between 105 and 109; J. Fluid Mech. 662 409–446, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112010003290.
Solomatov V 2015 Magma oceans and primordial mantle differentiation; In: Treatise on Geophysics, 2nd edn, 9 81–104, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53802-4.00155-X.
Solomon S C 1979 Formation, history and energetics of cores in the terrestrial planets; Phys. Earth Planet. Int. 19 168–182, https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9201(79)90081-5.
Spicuzza M J, Day J M D, Taylor L A and Valley J W 2007 Oxygen isotope constraints on the origin and differentiation of the Moon; Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 253 254–265, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2006.10.030.
Šrámek O, Ricard Y and Dubuffet F 2010 A multiphase model of core formation; Geophys. J. Int. 181 198–220, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2010.04528.x.
Stevenson D J 1987 Origin of the Moon – The collision hypothesis; Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 15 271–315, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ea.15.050187.001415.
Suckale J, Elkins-Tanton L T and Sethian J A 2012 Crystals stirred up: 2. Numerical insights into the formation of the earliest crust on the Moon; J. Geophys. Res. 117 E08005, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JE004067.
Taylor S R, Taylor G J and Taylor L A 2006 The Moon: A Taylor perspective; Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70 5904–5918, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2006.06.262.
Tian Z L, Wisdom J and Elkins-Tanton L 2017 Coupled orbital-thermal evolution of the early Earth-Moon system with a fast-spinning Earth; Icarus 281 90–102, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2016.08.030.
Tikoo S M, Weiss B P, Shuster D L, Suavet C, Wang H and Grove T L 2017 A two-billion-year history for the lunar dynamo; Sci. Adv. 3 e1700207, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700207.
Touboul M, Puchtel I S and Walker R J 2015 Tungsten isotopic evidence for disproportional late accretion to the Earth and Moon; Nature 520 530–533, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14355.
Verzicco R and Camussi R 1999 Prandtl number effects in convective turbulence; J. Fluid Mech. 383 55–73, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112098003619.
Weber R C, Lin P Y, Garnero E J, Williams Q and Lognonné P 2011 Seismic detection of the lunar core; Science 331 309–312, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199375.
Weiss B P and Tikoo S M 2014 The lunar dynamo; Science 346 1246753, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1246753.
Williams J G, Konopliv A S, Boggs D H, Park R S, Yuan D N, Lemoine F G, Goossens S, Mazarico E, Nimmo F, Weber R C, Asmar S W, Melosh H J, Neumann G A, Phillips R J, Smith D E, Solomon S C, Watkins M M, Wieczorek M A, Andrews-Hanna J C, Head J W, Kiefer W S, Matsuyama I, McGovern P J, Taylor G J and Zuber M T 2014 Lunar interior properties from the GRAIL mission; J. Geophys. Res. Planets 119 1546–1578, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JE004559.
Wisdom J and Tian Z L 2015 Early evolution of the Earth–Moon system with a fast-spinning Earth; Icarus 256 138–146, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.02.025.
Zhang J, Dauphas N, Davis A M, Leya I and Fedkin A 2012 The proto-Earth as a significant source of lunar material; Nat. Geosci. 5 251–255, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1429.
Acknowledgements
This work is part of the doctoral research of VG. The authors would like to thank, A Gupta for valuable discussions. The authors are extremely grateful to the reviewers and associate editor for the useful feedback and suggestions. VG is supported by a fellowship of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), India [award number 09/135(0787)/2017-EMR-I]. The authors acknowledge the use of laboratory resources procured using PLANEX-ISRO funding and CAS (Theory) funding from UGC under earlier projects.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
VG: Conceptualisation, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing – original draft, review and editing, visualisation, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. SS: Conceptualisation, methodology, validation, investigation, writing – review and editing, supervision, project administration.
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Ramananda Chakrabarti
Corresponding editor: Ramananda Chakrabarti
Supplementary material pertaining to this article is available on the Journal of Earth System Science website (http://www.ias.ac.in/Journals/Journal_of_Earth_System_Science).
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary file1 (MP4 976 KB)
Supplementary file2 (MP4 1047 KB)
Supplementary file3 (MP4 1165 KB)
Supplementary file4 (MP4 1244 KB)
Supplementary file5 (MP4 1033 KB)
Supplementary file6 (MP4 1117 KB)
Supplementary file7 (MP4 1212 KB)
Supplementary file8 (MP4 1265 KB)
Supplementary file9 (MP4 1381 KB)
Supplementary file10 (MP4 1182 KB)
Supplementary file11 (MP4 1302 KB)
Supplementary file12 (MP4 1423 KB)
Supplementary file13 (MP4 1291 KB)
Supplementary file14 (MP4 1330 KB)
Supplementary file15 (MP4 1240 KB)
Supplementary file16 (MP4 1212 KB)
Supplementary file17 (MP4 1229 KB)
Supplementary file18 (MP4 1089 KB)
Supplementary file19 (MP4 2154 KB)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Goyal, V., Sahijpal, S. Early thermal evolution and planetary differentiation of the Moon: A giant impact perspective. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 230 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01966-2
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01966-2