How Was the Moon Formed?
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Started by metmike - Feb. 16, 2019, 3:04 p.m.
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By carlberky - Feb. 16, 2019, 6:53 p.m.
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The picture of the far side of the moon shows many craters, indicating to me that the moon acts as a shield for the earth.

Since the moon is, as I recall, only 180,000 miles from the earth, and the earth would also act as a shield for the moon, how did the moon get craters on the near side?

That would indicate to me that the moon was captured by the earth. 

By metmike - Feb. 16, 2019, 7:04 p.m.
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I never even thought about this before so you were one step ahead of me on this one carl. Here is what an expert stated:

Near-side/far-side impact crater counts

https://sservi.nasa.gov/?question=3318

"The Earth partially shields the near side of the Moon from incoming asteroids, but that is not a large enough effect to influence crater densities. Just using simple straight-line geometry, you can calculate how much of the lunar sky is obscured by the Earth, about 4 square degrees out of 41,000 sq degrees for the whole sky. This makes the Earth negligible as a shield for the Moon. The real reason there are more impact craters on the far side of the Moon is that the near side has a much thinner crust which has allowed volcanoes to erupt and fill in ancient large basins (or large impact craters)."