Robin Canup
Robin M. Canup (born November 20, 1968) is an American planetary scientist.Canup is known for her research based upon the giant impact hypothesis, using intensive modeling to simulate how planetary collisions unfold.[4][5][6][7] In 2012, Canup first published a refinement to the giant impact hypothesis, arguing that the Moon and the Earth formed in a series of steps that started with a massive collision of two planetary bodies, each larger than Mars, which then re-collided to form what we now call Earth.[8] After the re-collision, Earth was surrounded by a disk of material, which combined to form the Moon.[10] Canup has also published research describing a giant impact origin for Pluto and Charon.