Pieces of the Planet That Collided With Earth and Formed the Moon Are Still Buried Deep Inside Our Core

[Michie]

A proto planet the size of Mars called Theia may have collided, and remained, inside the Earth after ejecting enough material to form the Moon.

But in an expansive new study, researchers say there’s reason to believe that Theia’s impact on the solar system hasn’t concluded because it’s still influencing the forces of the Earth’s interior having been subsumed by our planet.

An international, interdisciplinary team of researchers identified something called Large Low-Velocity Provinces (LLVP) deep in the second layer of the Earth, known as the mantle, which could be relics of Theia.

The new study, published in the journal Nature, offers important new insights not only into the Earth’s internal structure but also its long-term evolution and the formation of the inner solar system.

How our own Moon was formed has proved a persistent challenge for several generations of scientists. The prevailing theories suggest that during the late stages of the Earth’s growth around 4.5 billion years ago, a huge collision known as the ‘giant impact’ formed the Moon from the debris.

Continued below.

Pieces of the Planet That Collided With Earth and Formed the Moon Are Still Buried Deep Inside Our Core

Large Low-Velocity Provinces in the Earth's deeper mantle layer are believed now to be large chunks of the proto planet Theia.

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[FireDragon76]

I like watching science stuff on PBS Nova. I am learning stuff all the time. When I was a kid in school, how the moon was formed was based on pure speculation. The actual history of Earth is turning out to be very dramatic.

 

[The Barbarian]

I like watching science stuff on PBS Nova. I am learning stuff all the time. When I was a kid in school, how the moon was formed was based on pure speculation. The actual history of Earth is turning out to be very dramatic.

The problem for astrophysicists was that the moon is almost comically too big to be a satellite of a planet like Earth. A collision explains a lot of things, and if they find remnants of the collision in the Earth's interior, that will be supporting confirmation.

 

[RileyG]

Thanks for posting- this stuff is really fascinating!