Disintegrative Capture

The Moon's origin is undecided due to many conflicting variables that we have discovered over the last half century. This includes a better understanding of planetary physics and the geological stages that are needed for a planet or moon to form. During Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed a large mirror on the surface. The Lunar Laser Ranging experiment involved sending a laser to the mirror and timing how long it took to receive a laser signal back. Using this time scientists could then calculate exactly how far away the moon was from the earth. Not only this, but if collected repeatedly over time, we would then be able to learn whether the moon was getting closer or farther from the earth over time. This would

Ernst J. Opik proposed that a high velocity object could have passed Earth's lower atmosphere, breaking apart. At Roche's limit, 18,500 kilometers above the center of the earth, objects are torn apart due to a planets gravitational pull. Opik proposes that some of an object may have been pulled apart a collected around the Earth. The resulting Earth and external debris would then assimilate and orbit the Earth as a moon. This supported the data proving the moon came from earth as well as another primordial object. Ernst Opik named it Disintegrative Capture. The now named "Disintegrative Capture Theory” still held some of the astrophysics problems found with its precedent. An object moving at the velocity to reach Roche’s limit without being taken to its surface is too fast for said object of its mass to also be captured into orbit. Theories like this one aren't immediately pulled from the shelves of speculation, but are instead reserved for the future. Even today our understanding of interplanetary physics is far from exact. Without computer simulations accounting for every variable like cosmic drift, it is a challenge to predict exactly how the moon was