PAPER 11 OF THE LEF SERIES
The Requirements
What the mechanism forces, what the Moon has, and what remains unresolved
Abstract
Suppose the Moon was built from Earth material while attached to it: deep material was fed into the developing body while the parent's outer shell rose with it and became its crust. What properties should the Moon then have? We state each such property as a requirement with three parts: the condition the model must meet, the quantity that tests it, and the result that would rule it out. Requirements are used rather than a total score, because several matches can be one fact seen several ways and a single clear failure must count as a failure. Seven are examined: isotopic affinity to terrestrial sources; transfer of metal consistent with a small core; crustal asymmetry; an orientation linked to the connection side; an order of cooling and preservation; volatiles available at the time of transport; and a relation between crustal distribution and the centre of mass. The data support several of these properties but do not by themselves confirm the route. Basalt ages do not date the crust beneath them. Sampled water does not fix the volatile inventory at construction. Present synchronous rotation does not prove continuous synchronism since the connection. A joint test of crustal thickness and centre-of-mass offset gives 1.24–3.11 km for density contrasts of 300–750 kg/m³. A mass balance shows that the dome's shell, thickened threefold on closure, supplies the far-side crust: about 4% of the lunar mass, as GRAIL finds. Eleven further requirements from the later papers (R8–R18) are stated with their tests and refutation conditions.
Keywords: Moon; lunar origin; isotopic similarity; lunar crust; centre-of-mass offset; GRAIL; refutation criteria; volatiles
How to cite
Duran, Z. (2026). The Requirements: What the mechanism forces, what the Moon has, and what remains unresolved. Paper 11 of the LEF series. https://lef-model.com/paper11.html