Earth, Venus and Moon: A Collision and Gravitational Capture

Why does Venus rotate backwards? Why does the Moon's visible face bear a unique crustal and geochemical scar that the far side lacks? Why are the dynamos of both the Moon and Venus extinct? These anomalies of the inner Solar System — along with Venus's iron deficit and its absence of a natural satellite — have long been treated as unrelated coincidences. We show that a single grazing impact (hit-and-run) of an independent differentiated planetary embryo on Venus can resolve four of these anomalies simultaneously (rotation, dynamo, iron deficit, crustal dichotomy) while remaining compatible with the fifth (Venus's absent satellite). The proto-Moon is not conceived as a satellite of Venus or a fragment of Earth, but as an independent planetary embryo — a natural product of late-stage accretion in the inner Solar System. The contact site is identified on both bodies: Ishtar Terra–Maxwell Montes on Venus, Imbrium–PKT province on the Moon. A blind scan of 2,376 lunar positions identifies Imbrium–PKT at the 100th percentile. Topographic profiles fit as mould and negative: Venus rises to +10.4 km exactly where the Moon sinks to −5.6 km. At the 14° mirror alignment, 80.5% of pixels satisfy the mould/negative criterion, rising to 98.8% at the highest Venus peaks. The Earth–Moon mass ratio (1.23%) is more than fifty times higher than that of any other planet–satellite system, consistent with a non-standard origin. A post-impact kinematic scan of 82,000 trajectories shows that temporary gravitational capture by Earth peaks at ~2.4% for Venus near 1.02 AU and is absent beyond ~1.125 AU. Capture probability is strongly velocity-dependent (82.5% at v∞ = 0.1 km/s, 1.5% at 0.3 km/s). The hit-and-run mechanism is independently validated by the 3D SPH simulations of Bussmann et al. (A&A, 2025). Nine falsifiable predictions are proposed, including a decisive test by VERITAS (~2031) and an isotopic test feasible now on existing Barberton spherule samples.