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A team of researchers have determined that the Moon formed around 100 million years after the inception of the solar system. The approximation is based on the measurements from the interior of Earth combined with computer simulations of the protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other planets came into existence. 

Researchers also analyzed the growth history of Earth-like planets from 259 simulations and observed a relationship between the time Earth was impacted by an object as big as Mars to create the Moon and the amount of material added to Earth post impact. 

The relationship worked much like a clock to date the Moon-forming event. Researchers added that it was the first "geologic clock" in early solar system history that did not rely on measurement and interpretations of the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei for determining age. 

"We were excited to find a 'clock' for the formation time of the Moon that didn't rely on radiometric dating methods. This correlation just jumped out of the simulations and held in each set of old simulations we looked at," says lead author Seth Jacobson of the Observatory de la Cote d'Azur in Nice, France, in the press release.

After the geochemical measurements, the newly established clock suggested that the Moon formed 95~32 million years after the beginning of the solar system. 

"This result is exciting because in the same simulations that can successfully form Mars in only 2 to 5 million years, we can also form the Moon at 100 million years. These vastly different timescales have been very hard to capture in simulations," said author Dr. Kevin Walsh from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Space Science and Engineering Division in the press release.

The findings of the study has been published in the journal Nature.