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Hello wonderful person. This is Anton and today we're going to discuss some of the recent updates about the most catastrophic event that happened to planet Earth.
The idea known as the giant impact hypothesis. The event that represented one of the most destructive
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collisions in the history of the solar system that eventually led to the formation of modern Earth and of course our moon. And for decades, the primary question surrounding this event was mostly focusing on the lunar formation and on various unusual similarities between Earth and the moon.
And although
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some studies that we discussed previously that you can also find any description potentially questioned this event, basically suggesting that maybe it was something entirely different, at the moment most scientists seem to agree that something catastrophic indeed happened 4.4 billion years ago, because
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otherwise it's very difficult to explain the formation of the moon. But today we're going to discuss this somewhat recent research that suggests the collision between the hypothetical planet Thea and early Earth might have been far more significant than just giving us the moon.
It might have been
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responsible for basically forming early life. And so let's discuss this idea and the study in a bit more detail.
But here I guess let's start with the very brief history of early Earth. And here we have to rewind time by approximately 4 and a half billion years.
The early solar
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system was a very chaotic place. Planets were still forming.
A lot of things were still colliding. And quite a few planets, including potentially some of the biggest planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, all seem to have experienced major collisions.
And some of these early planets potentially
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shared very similar orbits, possibly even getting stuck in somewhat permanent positions such as Lranch points, which do allow certain objects to share the same orbital parameters. And so the hypothesis here was that at least one of these objects was maybe somewhat similar
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in size to Mars. But it was also shared in orbit with planet Earth.
But because there was so much interaction in the solar system, at some point this object got dislodged. And this object referred to as Thea eventually collided with early Earth with the immense energy from the impact ejecting a vast amount of
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debris into the orbit around the planet which eventually caused to form the moon. And so this particular formation hypothesis has been studied for many decades and right now does seem to make a lot of sense.
But this collision might have actually had a much more profound consequence for our planet because
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according to quite a few cosmical studies or essentially studies on the chemistry of various planetary objects, Earth as we know it today seems to have accreted approximately 5 to 10% of its entire mass from something known as carbonatious materials also known as
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CC's which usually refers to any substance rich in carbon such as for example organic compounds like graphite or a lot of stuff we find inside asteroids and meteorites. And these meteorites are usually referred to as carbonacious condrites.
Any meteorite
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containing a lot of these chunks and a lot of these volatile chemicals, mostly composed of hydrogen and carbon, that can then easily vaporize, but most importantly, is basically essential for life. But there's a bit of a problem.
Based on what we know about the planet, Earth seems to have formed much, much
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closer to the sun. And temperatures near the sun even back in the days were much too high for these volatile materials to condense and become part of these early rocky planets.
Or just to rephrase this, we don't really expect so many volatiles and so many carbonatious materials to be
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present around planet Earth. And that means that early Earth might have been quite dry and quite barren, not so different from planets like for example Mercury.
So it would most likely be some kind of a wasteland completely incapable of supporting life. And that's where
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this thea hypothesis steps in because it might have been a massive delivery truck. This new study published in science advances by Pascal Coutach and his partner Klaus Messenger strongly suggests that Thea originated much farther in the solar system in a
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location where a lot of volatiles very likely existed. And when this volatile rich fa collided with proto earth, it didn't just create the moon.
It also delivered a lot of these essential ingredients directly to our planet. And in this case, researchers used a very specific chemical model, mostly focusing
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on different isotopes, for example, manganesees and chromium. And this allowed them to precisely track the first few millions of years of Earth's formation and understand the chemical makeup of a lot of the building blocks with findings indicating that early Earth and very likely a lot of other
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rocky planets like Mars, Mercury, and Venus dramatically changed their composition in the first 3 million years mostly because of a lot of dust and gas being delivered to their surface. But following this initial period, the process of getting new matter mostly stopped with the result being well what
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we see right now around other planets. Planets closer to the sun, so Mercury and Venus were depleted in volatile elements whereas planets like Mars potentially had some elements but eventually lost them due to the lack of mass.
But Earth does contain a lot of
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volatiles. So they must have come from something else.
In this case, Ta seems to make the most sense. And here this object was very likely some kind of a small stony planet but enriched in carbon and organic compounds with all these compounds suddenly delivered to
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the earth's surface. But interestingly this is just one of two studies released very recently that kind of implies something very similar.
There's actually another study you see right here by Branco Maccado and Raymond that suggests they didn't just bring volatiles. It also very likely delivered a lot of
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water. And this is a puzzle for geologists because water is generally much less dense.
Meaning that in theory it should rise to the crust or the oceans. But here the simulations from the study suggest that thea delivered all of this water mostly into the earth's mantle.
And there hasn't been
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enough time for most of it to reach the surface yet. And so deep inside our planet there is very likely a lot of leftover water representing a direct legacy of this enormous impact.
with both studies providing validation for cosmic chemical studies explaining how
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earth acquired significant fraction of carbonatous material and a huge amount of water on top of this with these two propositions explaining and solving quite a lot of unusual mysteries for example previous chemical studies on earth and Mars showed that in case of
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our planet it seems to have 10 to 15% carbonatious material while our red neighbor Mars seems to just have a few% or just a fraction of the material material and that doesn't really make sense because Mars is much farther from the sun. So technically it should contain more and so if carbonia's
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material in the inner solar system was mainly in the form of these large planetary embryos that would then collide with various objects it would be much easier to explain why some planets seem to have this misbalance here. Earth would receive a huge dose while Mars potentially only experienced much slower
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collisions and thus much less delivery of various volatiles. And so here this particular model actually questions the origin of thea.
It was unlikely to have come from the same orbital parameter as earth and was extremely more likely to be some kind of a volatile rich body
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coming from the outer solar system possibly even beyond the asteroid belt and beyond Jupiter. And here the simulations also suggest that it was really Jupiter and Saturn that mostly scattered a lot of these materials early on very likely causing most of these collisions.
But I guess the main
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question here is so why is this important and why does this matter? Well, in this case the implications are quite vast and do extend way beyond our planet because obviously in this case earth is also the only planet where life has been officially confirmed and also
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directly depends on these two things thea brought to earth organic molecules and carbonatious materials and a lot of water. And so one of the potential implications here is of course in regards to the origins of life.
Maybe life requires these dramatic events and
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actually very specific events very likely involving giant volatile rich factors from the outer star system to suddenly receive a lot of essential building blocks for life and potentially a lot of other stuff in order to kickstart early formation of life on the
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planet. which also potentially suggests that life in the universe is maybe not so common after all.
And so even though today most researchers focus on earthlike worlds when trying to discover some kind of a habitable planet out there, the conclusions from these two studies suggest that we're still just
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going to find some kind of a barren rock unlikely to support any life at all. And it's really only certain rocks that experience these like impacts that then maybe have a chance for life to finally form.
But even in this case would still require quite a specific balance and
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quite a few critical things to happen at the right time. And so so far these two studies put a strong emphasis on these moon forming impacts as not just being geological events but also being biologically foundational at least for the history of our own planet.
And
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although there were some limitations in the study, such as not accounting for all of the complex dynamics in the early gas disc, the research still provides powerful dynamical validation for most chemical studies involving planets and offers us plausible scenario for how Earth became unique lifeupporting
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planet, which in summary means that the story of Thea is no longer just about the moon. It's now about the life itself.
This event potentially led to the emergence of life that then physically transformed the planet into the Earth we see today, making this a stark reminder that sometimes our
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existence might just be the result of very precise and even somewhat lucky events that may not be very common out there. But once again, this is at least for now still a hypothesis.
And if you disagree, let me know why in the comments below. But we'll definitely
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come back and discuss this more in some of the future videos because this is probably one of the most fascinating topics when it comes to the formation of Earth and the moon. And so until then, thank you for watching.
Subscribe, come back tomorrow to learn something else. Support this channel on Patreon where you can find additional videos, videos without any ads and can DM me directly
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or by joining a general membership that grants you early access and a few more things. Alternatively, you can also buy the wonderful prison t-shirt in the description.
Stay wonderful. I'll see you tomorrow and as always, bye-bye.
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