Cosmic chromium could have led to the formation of the moon

the moon Which enlightens the most Earthly nights It appears to have been formed as a product of the singular “Cosmic Chrome”: During the infancy on our planet, there was an object the size of… Marscalled the “protoplanet”. Thea, she could have hit the ground. During this clash of mythical dimensions, part of the orb became embedded in the “pale blue dot”, as it is described. Carl Sagan To our home in the universe, the resulting debris will be thrown into Earth’s orbit, where it will be “packaged” or compressed, giving rise to our nighttime beacon.

New evidence published in the latest issue of nature Support this hypothesis It was proposed about a decade ago and will help explain a long-observed mystery at the heart of our planet: two massive rock formations thousands of kilometers across and slightly denser than their surroundings, suggesting they are made of a different material than Earth’s. The rest of the scarf. Computer models suggest that these artifacts would be the product of a giant impact that occurred when the Earth was still in its infancy, 4.5 billion years ago.

“The minor planetary impact theory is one of the most accepted theories today as the origin of the Moon,” he explains. Beatrice Garcia, Doctor of Astronomy graduated from the Faculty of Astronomical and Geophysical Sciences of the National University of La Plata, and currently responsible for education and publishing at the Pierre Auger International Observatory, in Mendoza. This group of researchers modeled and the results reinforced this idea It indicates that it was not composed of fragments of the Earth, but rather that there was a mixture of the two bodies, the Earth and the planet that was in our neighborhood, Thea (in Greek mythology, the mother of Selene, the goddess and embodiment of the Moon).”

In those times, The Earth had not yet reached the point of complete solidification, and as a result the components of both bodies were mixed.. “The material that makes up the moon might be released like when a drop drops into a liquid and a little drop jumps out,” Garcia explains. In addition, there is a record of an impact in some regions located at the interface between the mantle and the Earth’s core, which cannot be accessed directly, because a very deep well would have to be drilled. They are spots that are detected by seismic waves that occur in one place on Earth, cross the entire planet and are recorded on the other side, or are produced by volcanoes in the absence of overlapping tectonic plates, as is the case in volcanoes. Hawaii.”

Scientists call these formations “Large provinces” or “low-speed islands”Because seismic waves travel through it more slowly than through the rest of the mantle Anil Ozain nature (bang: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03385-9).

The researchers conducted computer simulations of the interaction between Theia’s mantle and Earth from the time of the alleged collision to the present. These show that some of Theia’s material initially sank to the lower region of the Earth’s mantle and accumulated there over time, forming the spots. One is located below Africa and the other is located below the Pacific Ocean.

The energy from the planetary collisions is supposed to have partially melted the mantle and formed two layers: a molten upper layer and a mostly solid lower layer. Some of the protoplanet’s material may have sunk and settled in the lower layer. Over time, the debris would have formed two separate blobs and the portion that had been ejected into orbit would have formed the Moon.

“That is, we have indirect evidence from patches of density different from that of the core and mantle, which would not be terrestrial material, but rather the remnants of this planet Theia, which were left there as a record after the collision,” Garcia says. . This is important because If the Moon were simply a product of its separation from the Earth, we would have some problems interpreting its chemical composition. Isotopes appear frequently to be related to something else.

According to the astronomer, these effects were very common at the beginning of the astronomical era Solar SystemBecause the planets were formed by “accretion” or adding matter. When a star forms from the interstellar cloud, it does not emerge with its planets immediately, but rather emerges from a sort of disk of fragments that are pulled together by gravity.

“In the beginning, we had molecules and atoms – García details – … until violent phenomena occurred, such as so-called ‘supernovas’.” [muertes de estrellas muy masivas], generating an expansive shock wave that favors the compression of that interstellar material. The large stars had to die so that the cloud from which the solar system was formed could somehow compress and the protostar would appear. [el Sol]. Around it was a disk of matter that became flat, and there were multiple impacts and combinations of matter that led to the appearance of planets. In the past this was very common. naturally, He added: “The object that would have hit the Earth is theoretical. No one saw it, and there were no living creatures on Earth.”

Humanity happily continues space activity and studies of the universe, but the truth is this Very little is known about the Earth’s internal structure.“Only recently has it been verified that the inner and outer core of the planet, one solid and the other molten, rotate at different speeds,” Garcia highlights. [A este fenómeno] It is called differential rotation.

Detecting anomalies in seismic wave propagation is a well-known and used technique. [En los años setenta] Russian scientists attempted to drill a well and tunnel to the center of the Earth and encountered a barrier that they could not penetrate. The reason for this is believed to be that at very high pressures and high temperatures, such as those found in that region, the material that we think of as solid and that can be drilled with a drill, such as granite, becomes flexible, and then when one wants to go through it, one cannot passes by, so the drilling was abandoned.

according to Qian Yuan and co-authors of the work presenting this new evidence (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06589-1), The next step will be to validate the models by comparing rock samples from the mantle with some samples from the Moon.