These new findings raise an interesting new puzzle. While they suggest the moon and the Earth formed together nearly 100 million years after the solar system arose, evidence from meteorites from Mars suggests that the Red Planet formed as little as a few million years after the solar system was born.
"This means that Earth and Mars formed over dramatically different timescales, with Mars forming much faster than the Earth," Jacobson said. "How can this be? Is it just a matter of size? Location? What about Mercury and Venus? Did they grow on similar timescales to the Earth or on timescales more similar to Mars? I think these are some of the really important questions that we, as a community of planetary scientists, will be addressing in the future."