When did the Moon-forming giant impact happen?
In plain words
Different lunar rocks and minerals give formation ages from about 4.51 to about 4.35 billion years ago. Whether the Moon formed early and was later remelted, or formed late, is disputed.
Precise statement
The oldest lunar zircons give ages near 4.46 to 4.51 Ga, whereas many ferroan anorthosites and lunar magma-ocean model ages cluster near 4.35 Ga. Determine the age of the Moon-forming impact and whether the 4.35 Ga cluster records formation or a later tidally driven remelting of an older Moon. An answer is an impact age with uncertainty below about $2 \times 10^{7}$ yr consistent with lunar and terrestrial Hf-W, Sm-Nd and U-Pb chronometers.
What would settle it
Concordant high-precision dating of the oldest lunar crust and zircons, including newly returned samples, tested against tidal-heating models of the early Moon.
Status in the literature
Unverified note: it names recent work and was partly written without a live literature search; it awaits a check by an editor.
Nimmo, Kleine and Morbidelli (Nature 2024, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08231-0) argued the $4.35\,\mathrm{Ga}$ ages reflect tidally driven remelting of an older Moon.
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