Mercury - a left-over of the crash that created the Moon?, Highly speculative but maybe worth it Options

[karolp]

Having agreed upon the Moon being created by a grazing collision with a Mars-sized object, could we give any thoughts to what happened to the impactor afterwards? Since it was a grazing collision, it might have been melted but not destroyed, only with some material ripped from it (and from the Earth) which ended up in Earth orbit to coalsce into what we know as the Moon today. But what happened to the impactor after it passed the Earth? Could it still hang around somewhere in the Solar System? I suppose it would bear some significant markings after the event, for instance have its outer layers stripped. But wait a second... Mercury DOES have its outer layers stripped off, with an unusually high mean density resulting from a core which could be considered oversized for such a small planetary body. In the wake of MESSENGER beginning to reveal Mercury's secrets in January, could anyone bother to give any thoughts to this idea? I am not sure whether it had been put forth previously or not, I am just curious if it could make any sense to have the impactor impact the Earth in a grazing manner and then end up parked in an elliptical orbit close to the Sun, with its outer layers stripped and an "oversized" original core left inside...

[Phil Stooke]

Quite right, EGD. The hardest part is getting the object to where Mercury is now. I'd say it was effectively impossible.

Phil