在讨论月球及行星起源的会议上,与会者对一组论述月球起源的论文表示了极大的兴趣。近来,该领域因新提出的撞击触发假说而受到鼓舞。这种假说提出,一颗巨大的陨星(有数个月球体到火星那样大)曾撞击原始地球并溅射出物质,这种物质在环形轨道上集聚而成月球。有好几位研究者正在用理论模型检验这种假说。正如澳大利亚国立大学(设在堪培拉)的S·罗斯·泰勒所评论的那样,这种假说“一下子便 At a conference to discuss the origins of the moon and the planet, participants expressed their great interest in a set of papers that dealt with the origins of the moon. Recently, the field has been encouraged by the newly proposed impact trigger hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that a giant meteorite, many months to Mars, had hit the original Earth and splashed matter that gathered in orbit around the moon. Several researchers are using the theoretical model to test this hypothesis. As S. Ross Taylor of the National University of Australia (based in Canberra) remarked, this hypothesis "suddenly