Scienceblogtwo

An impactor hurtled toward Earth around two billion years ago, striking into the globe not far from where Johannesburg, South Africa is now. The largest crater on Earth was created by the impactor, which was most likely an asteroid. Based on earlier studies, it is largely acknowledged by scientists that the Vredefort crater was created by an object with a diameter of around 15 kilometers (about 9.3 miles) and a speed of 15 kilometers per second. However, recent study from the University of Rochester suggests that the impactor may have been far larger and would have had catastrophic effects on the entire planet. This study, which was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, improves our knowledge of the massive impact and paves the way for more realistic simulations of impact events that have occurred on Earth and other planets in the past and will occur in the future. Understanding the largest effect structure humans have on Earth is crucial, according to Natalie Allen, a 2020...

The conventional wisdom regarding the genesis of our planet has been turned on its head by new study from Curtin University that suggests the early continents of Earth were formed as a result of comet impacts as our Solar System entered and exited the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. A new perspective on Earth's early history and our place in the universe is provided by the new research, which was published in Geology and challenges the conventional wisdom that the planet's crust was only created by internal processes. Studying minerals in the Earth's crust revealed a rhythm of crust production every 200 million years or so, Professor Chris Kirkland, the study's principal investigator, from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said. This rhythm matched our Solar System's transit through regions of the galaxy with a higher density of stars. Every 200 million years or so, the Solar System passes between the spiral arms of the Milky Way as it revolv...

The Moon has continued to hold an enduring interest for humanity. But it wasn't until Galileo's time that researchers started to take it seriously. Researchers have proposed a variety of, hotly contested ideas as to how the Moon was generated throughout the course of roughly five centuries. At ETH Zurich, geochemists, cosmochemists, and petrologists have now cast new light on the formation of the Moon. The research team's findings, which have just been reported in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate that the Moon acquired the native noble gases helium and neon from the Earth's mantle. The finding strengthens the already tight limitations on the widely accepted "Giant Impact" theory, which postulates that Earth and another celestial body collided violently to create the Moon. Patrizia Will examined six samples of moon meteorites from an Antarctic collection that NASA provided for her dissertation work at ETH Zurich. The meteorites are made of basalt rock,...