If the devil is in the details, then the story of the moon’s birth has been cursed for decades.

Sure, scientists think they know more or less how Earth’s little friend came to be: About 4.5 billion years ago, soon after an infant Earth formed, it collided with a Mars-size object called Theia. The collision obliterated Theia and hurled molten debris into orbit around Earth. Over hundreds of millions of years, the wreckage coalesced and became the shimmering sphere we see in our night sky.

Trouble is, several key observations don’t fit what’s now called the giant impact hypothesis. Three studies appearing Wednesday in Nature might be on the way toward exorcising some of those demons, with a little help from