There Are Massive Chunks of Another Planet Inside Earth, Scientists Say
YESTERDAY by VICTOR TANGERMANN
Is that you, Theia?
Image by Deng Hongping and Hangzhou Sphere Studio
Researchers have long suspected that the Moon was formed after a Mars-sized protoplanet, dubbed Theia, smashed into the primordial Earth some 4.5 billion years ago.
The literally Earth-shattering event sheared off huge amounts of debris, eventually forming our planet's lonely satellite.
Or at least how the theory goes; not all researchers agree, naturally. Now, though, a team of scientists at the China Academy of Sciences claims to have uncovered new evidence supporting the theory that bigger chunks of Theia than previously thought may have become lodged deep inside the Earth — leaving, perhaps, actual physical evidence of the ancient catastrophe.
The team analyzed two massive blobs of matter, known as large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs), which are buried deep below the African continent and the Pacific Ocean. As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Nature, they ran complex fluid dynamics simulations to figure out the possible origin of these blobs.
More:
https://futurism.com/massive-chunks-another-planet-earth-theia
= new reply since forum marked as read
and I'm astonished to learn that we may well have once had two moons.
I love learning new things. Now I'll have to ask My Son The Astronomer about this.
