A new paper in Nature presents some very interesting ideas about the evolution of the inner Solar System and by implication the nature of the bodies that collided in the giant impact to form the Earth-Moon system. Martin Schiller, Martin Bizzarro and Vera Assis Fernandes have looked at the calcium isotope composition of various inner…

One of the nice things about our regular Wednesday research group meeting is that it provides a great opportunity to exchange information about what’s new and exciting in the field. It all helps to keep you up to date, in what is, a fast moving and exciting area of research. So it was last Wednesday,…

The formation of the Moon remains a fascinating topic, with two recent papers providing some important new insights. A numerical modelling study by Nakajima and Stevenson indicates that, despite the very high temperatures involved in the giant impact, only a minor amount of water would have been lost from the newly-formed Moon. This is important…

I am a really big fan of PSRD – that’s Planetary Science Research Discoveries to give it its full title. PSRD was jointly founded by planetary geoscientists Jeff Taylor and Linda Martel, who are based at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. The aim of the site is to provide the public with a scientists’…