The Earth is actually two planets - not one - Unexplained Mysteries
Scientists have determined that the Earth and moon are made up of material from two separate worlds.
Somewhere around 100 million years after the Earth was formed it had a run-in with another planet known as Theia, but while previous studies had suggested that the two worlds had only side-swiped one another, new research has revealed that they were most likely involved in a head-on collision.
The cataclysmic smash was so destructive that Theia was reduced to a cloud of debris which gradually merged together with the Earth to form both the moon and a single, larger planet.
The research was based on a new analysis of rock samples retrieved during the Apollo moon landings which showed an identical ratio of oxygen isotopes to materials collected on the Earth - something that shouldn't be possible if the Earth and Theia had only side-swiped one another.
"Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon, and evenly dispersed between them," said UCLA geochemist Edward Young.
"This explains why we don’t see a different signature of Theia in the moon versus the Earth." - See more at: The Earth is actually two planets - not one - Unexplained Mysteries
Scientists have determined that the Earth and moon are made up of material from two separate worlds.
Somewhere around 100 million years after the Earth was formed it had a run-in with another planet known as Theia, but while previous studies had suggested that the two worlds had only side-swiped one another, new research has revealed that they were most likely involved in a head-on collision.
The cataclysmic smash was so destructive that Theia was reduced to a cloud of debris which gradually merged together with the Earth to form both the moon and a single, larger planet.
The research was based on a new analysis of rock samples retrieved during the Apollo moon landings which showed an identical ratio of oxygen isotopes to materials collected on the Earth - something that shouldn't be possible if the Earth and Theia had only side-swiped one another.
"Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon, and evenly dispersed between them," said UCLA geochemist Edward Young.
"This explains why we don’t see a different signature of Theia in the moon versus the Earth." - See more at: The Earth is actually two planets - not one - Unexplained Mysteries
