Saturday, November 4 2023 | 11:55 WIB
Surya Lesmana / LES
Illustration of Earth and Moon.
Washington, Beritasatu.com – Scientists widely agree that, billions of years ago, a large planet crashed into Earth, creating debris that coalesced to form the moon.
This theory, called the giant impact hypothesis, explains why there are many fundamental features on the moon and Earth.
Before this theory is proven, many people are still having difficulty finding where the remains of the ancient planet Theia that crashed into Earth are. Many scientists assume that the remains left by Theia are now in the interior of the Earth.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, Theia’s molten slab embedded itself in Earth’s mantle after the collision, leaving some of the planet’s material above Earth’s core about 1,800 miles (about 2,900 kilometers) below the surface.
If this theory is correct, then it will not only provide additional details to complement the giant impact hypothesis, but also answer a lingering question among geophysicists.
They were already aware that there were two large and distinct clumps (LLVP) embedded in the Earth, which were first detected in the 1980s. One blob is located under Africa, and another under the Pacific Ocean.
These clumps are thousands of kilometers wide and are likely denser in iron than the surrounding mantle, which makes them stand out when measured with seismic waves. But the origin of these clumps, each of which is larger than the moon, remains a mystery to scientists.
Qian Yuan, a geophysicist and postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and lead author of the study, said his understanding of LLVP changed when he attended a 2019 seminar at Arizona State University, which outlined the giant impact hypothesis.
That’s when he learns new details about Theia, an ancient planet that allegedly hit Earth billions of years ago. As a trained geophysicist, he knows of mysterious lumps hidden in the Earth’s mantle.
He began doing scientific research, finding out if anyone else had suggested that LLVP might be part of Theia. But no one theorized anything like that.
At first, Yuan said, he only told his advisers his theory. “I’m afraid to turn to other people because I’m afraid they’ll think I’m too crazy,” Yuan said.
Yuan first put forward the idea in a paper he submitted in 2021. But it was rejected three times. Reviewers of his paper said they did not have adequate modeling of such a large impact.
Then Yuan met with a group of scientists who were conducting the research he needed. Their research, which determined the size and speed of Theia’s collision with Earth in modeling. The simulation results show that the planet most likely did not melt all of Earth’s mantle, so that Theia’s remains cooled and formed a solid structure instead of merging into Earth’s interior.
2023-11-04 04:55:00
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