A Systematic Survey of Moon-Forming Giant Impacts. II. Rotating bodies

TL;DR

This study systematically investigates how pre-impact rotation of colliding bodies influences Moon-forming impact outcomes, revealing potential pathways to produce suitable protolunar disks but also highlighting limitations of the canonical impact scenario.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of pre-impact rotation effects on giant impacts, expanding understanding of collision dynamics relevant to lunar formation.

Findings

Pre-impact rotation can lead to low angular momentum, massive disks.

Canonical impact scenario requires excessive post-impact angular momentum.

Rotation influences impact outcomes significantly.

Abstract

In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range of giant impacts that could conceivably explain the Earth-Moon system is limited by the set of known physical and geochemical constraints. However, while several distinct Moon-forming impact scenarios have been proposed -- from small, high-velocity impactors to low-velocity mergers between equal-mass objects -- none of these scenarios have been successful at explaining the full set of known constraints, especially without invoking one or more controversial post-impact processes. Allowing for pre-impact rotation of the colliding bodies has been suggested as an avenue which may produce more promising collision outcomes. However, to date, only limited studies of pre-impact rotation have been conducted. Therefore, in the second paper of this series, we focus on pairwise impacts between rotating bodies. Using non-rotating collisions as a baseline, we systematically study the effects of rotation on collision outcomes. We consider nine distinct rotation configurations and a range of rotation rates up to the rotational stability limit. Notably, we identify a population of collisions that can produce low post-impact angular momentum budgets and massive, iron-poor protolunar disks. Furthermore, even when pre-impact rotation is included, we demonstrate that the canonical Moon-forming impact can only generate sufficiently massive protolunar disks in the presence of excessive post-impact angular momentum budgets; this casts doubt on the canonical impact scenario.