(The Moon is currently about 384,000 km or 60 Earth radii away from Earth, which is about fifteen times further away than it was when it first formed.) The Moon probably couldn't have formed closer than 3 Earth radii because tidal forces from the Earth would just pull it apart again, and it is unlikely that the impact could have ejected material ...
About 78% of Earthâs atmosphere is made up of nitrogen. Credit: NASA We might commonly think of Earth as having an oxygen-dominated atmosphere, but in reality the molecule makes up only a fifth of our air.
But more of that in a second. The Earthâs atmosphere is composed of the following molecules: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (1%), and then trace amounts of carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, krypton, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, xenon, ozone, iodine, carbon monoxide, and ammonia.