Engineering News

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Indeed.

Posession is 9/10ths of the law. If the Mercurtonians want their sister planet back, they can see us in court.

Quoting - "Malcuit's computer modeling studies, which he has worked on since the 1980s, show that it is possible for Earth's gravitational pull to capture the moon.

At first, the moon's orbits would have been highly elliptical, swinging close to Earth and then far away about eight times a year."

This is an interesting theory. I wish the author of the article would have taken the time to explain how or what caused the orbital energy of the moon to change to such a degree that moves from a heliocentric (actually solar system barycenter centric) to a earth/moon barycenter orbit. I somehow believe this would require very significant changes in energy. It would be interesting to learn how that energy was conserved.

I wish the experts would utilize such radical changes in theory to educate us in regards to the fundamentals of the science.

Gavilan

Good one about the orbital energy change required for the earth to "capture" the moon.