The latest theory - Earth had two moons

[Candlelight]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/5387798/Earths-two-moons-Its-not-lunacy-but-new-theory

In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think.
But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the "big splat."
The result: Our planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon.
The astronomers came up with the scenario to explain why the moon's far side is so much more hilly than the one that is always facing Earth.
The theory, outlined early today (NZ time) in the journal Nature, comes complete with computer model runs showing how it might have happened and an illustration that looks like the bigger moon getting a pie in the face.
Outside experts said the idea makes sense, but they aren't completely sold yet.
This all supposedly happened about 4.4 billion years ago, long before there was any life on Earth to gaze up and see the strange sight of dual moons. The moons themselves were young, formed about 100 million years earlier when a giant planet smashed into Earth. They both orbited Earth and sort of rose in the sky together, the smaller one trailing a few steps behind like a little sister in tow.

Interesting.

Unfortunately there's something about the way this article is written that just sits wrong. Seems very blaise for a science article.

 

[CorporalClegg]

That was no moon...


Isn't this old news? I swear I've heard, read this once before.

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's an interesting theory, but it seems like the "far" side should be facing the Earth if this were the case.

 

[Roshi]

Surely you meant hypothesis in stead of theory, didn't you?

 

[smiki]

Interesting it is, but...

The hypothesis I heard, and the one that seems more likely to me, is that the far side is more hilly simply because it gets hit, and got hit, by much more meteorite strikes, which then again happens because the other side simply can't get hit by meteorites because the Earth gravity just swallows anything coming from that side, the Earth's gravity well acts like some kind of a shield (and it all sits well with the fact that the close side, the one always directed to the Earth, is less hilly, and the other is not, whilst this hypothesis doesn't really explain that... )

 

[Thestral]

Pfft. Everybody knows the Earth once had two moons, but the other one was secretly an alien deathray machine that tried to incinerate the planet until Optimus Primal stopped it...

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Interesting it is, but...

The hypothesis I heard, and the one that seems more likely to me, is that the far side is more hilly simply because it gets hit, and got hit, by much more meteorite strikes, which then again happens because the other side simply can't get hit by meteorites because the Earth gravity just swallows anything coming from that side, the Earth's gravity well acts like some kind of a shield (and it all sits well with the fact that the close side, the one always directed to the Earth, is less hilly, and the other is not, whilst this hypothesis doesn't really explain that... )

That also seems more likely to me - Occam's Razor, and all that jazz.