Home▸Space & Astronomy▸Giant Impact Debris Disk: Moon Accretion Simulator

Giant Impact Debris Disk: Moon Accretion Simulator

Interactive 3D simulation of the giant-impact hypothesis: watch a post-collision debris disk around Earth separate at the Roche limit, with outer debris accreting through gravitational focusing into a growing Moon while inner material stays a ring.

Space & Astronomy3DAdvanced60 FPS

After a giant impact blasted debris into orbit around the young Earth, the fate of that material split at one invisible boundary: the Roche limit. This simulator models a flattened post-impact disk of orbiting debris, integrating each clump's true Keplerian orbital speed and letting outer clumps merge through gravitational focusing while inner clumps are held apart by tidal shear as a permanent ring. Watch runaway accretion turn a hundred scattered debris bodies into one growing Moon, and drag the satellite-density slider to see the Roche limit — and therefore how much of the disk ever gets the chance to accrete — shift in real time.

⚙ Under the hood

Watch a post-giant-impact debris disk around Earth split at the Roche limit: outer debris merges through gravitational focusing into a growing Moon while inner debris is tidally sheared into a permanent ring.

moon formationgiant impactroche limitaccretionorbital mechanicsastrophysics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install