Talk:Mare Imbrium
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I have been reading an article "The Imbrium Impact" by Nils Aall Barricelli, an Italian-Norwegian mathematician, in the August 1971 issue of Analog magazine. He suggests that the Mare Imbriam was caused by the collision of the Moon with another, much smaller sattelite of the earth, with a diameter of about 300 to 350 kilometers. He states that surface features indicate that the smaller sattelite "collided with the Moon after approaching its surface from a low angle to the horizon". He further adds that a high velocity impact from a meteor or a small asteroid would have vaporized the surrounding rock, but an impact on the order of 2 to 3 km./sec would merely have melted the rock, causing a massive lava flow. I am certainly no expert on this, but I had never heard this theory before. I wondered if this theory had been disproved in the last thirty years, or never seriously considered.
- Well there is little doubt that Mare Imbrium is an impact basin. As to whether ot not the lava flows were internal from the Moon or created by rock melt, I'm not sure. But there have been repeated lava flows on this mare, as evidenced by visible edges of past flows along the surface, so I would think at least some of the magma welled up from the interior. — RJH 17:49, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)