Moon formed by nuclear explosion

20 May 2013 - It is true.

My favorite Dutch newspaper (NRC) writes about it and the scientists are Dutch so it has to be true. In the most recent edition of the journal Chemical Geology (we temporarily lift the Elsevier ban) Wim van Westrenen et al. explain that our moon was formed not by collision of Earth with an extraterrestrial body but by a nuclear explosion somewhere at Earth's core-mantle boundary (DOI). In the early development of Earth when the crust began to cool, heavy elements such as uranium collected deeper in the core at the so-called D-layer. Impact of a small planetoid could have triggered nuclear fission. One of the main selling points for the theory is the identical isotopic composition of Earth and Moon for several light elements and heavy elements. Georeactors are also nothing new.
From the NRC article it becomes clear that van Westrenen had a hard time getting his work published. Thus far he had only written about it in the popular press. Even in the published article the explosive thesis is somewhat buried, you have to get to the second part of the abstract for the nuclear stuff.