The Remnants of an Ancient Planet May Lay Buried Close to Earth’s Core

Scientists believe pieces of an ancient Mars-sized planet known as Theia may be buried deep in Earth’s mantle close to its core, following an ancient collision between the two worlds that gave rise to the formation of the moon.

The planets of our solar system bear countless scars that testify to a history of unimaginable cosmic violence. Mercury’s cratered surface is formed from countless kilometers of asteroid impacts, while Uranus rotates at an angle of 97 degrees to the Sun’s orbital plane, the result of a collision with an unknown asteroid long ago. Earth has also been subjected to countless acts of cosmic aggression, the greatest of which is thought to have occurred some 4.5 billion years ago, when our emerging planet was struck by an ancient world known simply as Theia.

Previous research has shown that the collision could have occurred with enough force to turn both the impactor and much of our planet’s outer layers into a mass of flowing molten debris. Much of this matter was thrown into orbit by the momentum of the impact, but was pulled back to our shattered planet shortly afterwards. However, much of the material remained in orbit, where it would eventually coalesce into the moon we observe today.

First things first: we have identified a new astronomical object, ‘Buried Planet’, using SEISMOLOGY instead of telescopes. It is a survivor of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago to form our moon. See our @Nature cover paper: https://t.co/ILvMStRA4V pic.twitter.com/80G5VWgoZY

— Qian Yuan (@qianyuan_geo) November 1, 2023

A new set of computer simulations modeling the impact support the idea that two continent-sized masses of material buried deep beneath the Earth’s surface may in fact be remnants of ancient Theia. The blobs – located beneath what is now Africa and the Pacific Ocean – were first discovered in the 1980s and were dubbed large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) due to the fact that seismic waves were observed to travel more slowly as they passed through the areas . strange mass.

This in turn suggested that these cavities may have a different composition and higher density than the surrounding matter that makes up most of Earth’s mantle, the section between our planet’s upper core and the lower crust.

According to the findings of the new study, led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology, and published in the journal Nature, Theia may have hit Earth with enough force to completely melt the upper part of the Earth’s mantle, while the lower part of the Earth’s mantle remained. half of our planet is largely stuck. During this chaotic process, Earth could have acquired about 10 percent of Theia’s mass, which would explain the enormous size of the strange deposits discovered in Earth’s mantle today.

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