Players of the CyGaME (Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects) Project instructional video game Selene, a lunar science game developed by the Center for Educational Technologies® and supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, discover and apply fundamental geological processes such as collisional accretion. Selene models the Giant Impact Theory. That the moon was formed out of debris left over from an indirect collision between Earth and an astronomical body the size of Mars, approximately 4.5 billion years ago. This still image captured from Selene illustrates a large projectile about a quarter the size of the proto-Earth colliding with early Earth. Player inquiry discovers and applies the physics through which debris from the collision accreted as the Earth's proto moon.
Visit Website | Image credit: Debbie Denise Reese, CYGaMEs Project, Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University