> During Earth’s earliest days, it was covered by a sheet of molten silicate rock. Dr. Hosono’s team wondered what would have happened if Theia had crashed into Earth at that time, rather than during a later, cooler, more solid phase.
This is the simulation of how a moon could have been formed, this is not supposed to represent the formation of the actual Moon.
Also, if you play the animation slowly, you can see a brighter circle forming at the point of impact, before the impact. Is that part of the simulation or an artifact of the animation, I wonder?
My interpretation is that the surface magma, cooled down hence the dull orange, is blown away by the bow shock in the atmosphere from the other body entering the atmosphere. This exposes the hotter, brighter, underlying magma.
Wouldn't that require an unreasonably thick atmosphere? Our current atmosphere is only around 10 miles high. (Obviously, it all depends on what you consider as your cutoff.)
Gravity that attract mater imho (and make hot matter go on surface). There is another effect : the incoming moon is not a sphere any more before impact.
> During Earth’s earliest days, it was covered by a sheet of molten silicate rock. Dr. Hosono’s team wondered what would have happened if Theia had crashed into Earth at that time, rather than during a later, cooler, more solid phase.
This is the simulation of how a moon could have been formed, this is not supposed to represent the formation of the actual Moon.