Peanuts by Charles Schulz for February 20, 1963
February 19, 1963
February 21, 1963
Transcript:
Schroeder plays the piano. Lucy leans on the piano and says, "Rachel Carson says that when our moon was born, there were no oceans on earth."<BR><BR> Schroeder sits up and shouts, "Rachel Carson! Rachel Carson! Rachel Carson!"<BR><BR> Schroeder throws up his hands and says, "You're always talking about Rachel Carson!"<BR><BR> Lucy says, "We girls need our heroines!"<BR><BR>
Well, based on the leading hypothesis of the moon’s formation as of this writing (2021), the Giant-Impact hypothesis, that would be quite right. During the late stages of the solar system’s formation, about 4.5 billion years ago, a body about the size of Mars impacted the proto-Earth, and the ejecta from that collision eventually coalesced to form the Moon. If the very early Earth pre-impact already had oceans (unlikely, as the surface was probably still largely molten back then), they would have been quickly boiled away by the impact and would not be able to form again until much later, after many centuries of rain (as in the previous strip) as the planet slowly cooled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis
Most of the other currently less-favoured hypotheses of the moon’s formation also seem to place the moon’s formation at a time before oceans could have formed as well.