Geography This is how life on earth could have started By

A new theory suggests that life on Earth could have started due to an epic clash with another planet.

This hypothetical planet is called Theia, and some experts believe that it is also responsible for breaking a portion of the Earth and sending it at full speed into space and eventually becoming our Moon.

The ingredients that created the conditions for life on earth may not be native to our planet, the Earth. According to a new hypothesis published in the journal Science Advances, the essential elements for life were incorporated into a planet the size of Mars that collided with Earth 4,500 million years ago.

But, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston (USA), it brought with volatile elements such as carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and sulfur, which allowed the Earth to come alive. According to what we know, it is unlikely that the Earth produced those volatile substances that feed the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the biosphere by itself.

For a long time, it was thought that the volatile elements were transported Earth in meteorites perhaps called chondrites Carbonaceous. These primitive meteorites that bombarded our planet are much richer in volatile compounds than the primitive Earth (also known as Gaia) and other rocky bodies of the inner solar system, which gives more weight to this hypothesis.

However, the carbon-nitrogen ratio of the mass of silicate mass is more than 20 times the proportion observed in the carbonaceous chondrites, so the scientists wanted to find out if the volatiles could have been administered to the Earth through another method, like the planet Theia.

In a series of practical experiments using capsules loaded with silicate and mixtures of alloys, the team recreated the conditions of high temperature and high pressure under which the Theia core could have been formed. This helped determine at what percentage of sulfur the core could have excluded carbon and nitrogen, leaving them in the bulk silicate of the planet.

With all the data, the team ran computer simulations of about a billion different scenarios to determine how Earth got its volatile compounds.

A planet may have more chances of developing life if it suffers violent collisions.

Related Article: Apophis Asteroid could hit the Earth in 2068, warns Russian Scientists

“What we discovered is that all the evidence (isotopic signatures, the carbon-nitrogen ratio and the overall amounts of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur in Earth’s silicate) was consistent with a moon-forming impact involving a planet of the Earth. size of Mars. With with a sulfur-rich core, “said Damanveer Grewal, co-author of the work.

This does not mean that the carbonaceous chondrites did not contribute in some way, but it does indicate that Theia may have assisted with the majority, a finding that suggests that a planet may have a better chance of developing life if it suffers violent collisions.

“From the study of primitive meteorites, scientists have known for a long time that the Earth and other rocky planets in the inner solar system are depleted by volatility,” explained geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta.

“But the moment and mechanism of the delivery of volatile elements has been hotly debated, ours is the first scenario that can explain the moment and deliver it in a consistent manner with all the geochemical tests,” concludes Dasgupta.

Reference: Delivery of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur to the silicate Earth by a giant impact