Mysterious blobs 1,000 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, may be remains of a planet the size of Mars that collided with Earth in the early days of our solar system and produced a shower of debris that formed the moon, Guardian reported citing a research.
The blobs, known technically as large low-velocity provinces or LLVPs, were originally discovered by seismologists, but their origins are not known.
A team of researchers, including Dr. Qian Yuan from the California Institute of Technology and Prof. Hongping Deng from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used computer simulations of the giant impact and convection currents inside Earth to explore the cataclysmic event.
According to their simulations, the collision with Theia would have caused the upper portion of Earth’s mantle to melt, leaving a significant portion of Theia’s material (around 10%) to penetrate Earth and gradually sink toward its core.
Over the next 4.5bn years, the rock from Theia could have moved around due to convection inside Earth and ultimately formed the blobs present today.
The blobs, which are thought to be slightly denser than the surrounding mantle rock, are near the boundary with Earth’s core, about 1,800 miles down.
“To my knowledge, our work is the first one proposing this idea,” Guardian quoted Yuan as saying.
Prof Alex Halliday, who studies planetary evolution and materials at the University of Oxford said “This is a great paper with bold thinking and interesting conclusions.”
“However, it raises questions that need further discussion and analysis, particularly concerning the way the moon and Earth mixed to achieve so many similarities while preserving ancient deep-mantle heterogeneity.”
The blobs, known technically as large low-velocity provinces or LLVPs, were originally discovered by seismologists, but their origins are not known.
A team of researchers, including Dr. Qian Yuan from the California Institute of Technology and Prof. Hongping Deng from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used computer simulations of the giant impact and convection currents inside Earth to explore the cataclysmic event.
According to their simulations, the collision with Theia would have caused the upper portion of Earth’s mantle to melt, leaving a significant portion of Theia’s material (around 10%) to penetrate Earth and gradually sink toward its core.
Over the next 4.5bn years, the rock from Theia could have moved around due to convection inside Earth and ultimately formed the blobs present today.
The blobs, which are thought to be slightly denser than the surrounding mantle rock, are near the boundary with Earth’s core, about 1,800 miles down.
“To my knowledge, our work is the first one proposing this idea,” Guardian quoted Yuan as saying.
Prof Alex Halliday, who studies planetary evolution and materials at the University of Oxford said “This is a great paper with bold thinking and interesting conclusions.”
“However, it raises questions that need further discussion and analysis, particularly concerning the way the moon and Earth mixed to achieve so many similarities while preserving ancient deep-mantle heterogeneity.”
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