Scientists uncover a strange structure below the surface of the planet – About 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth formed from a solar nebula. It weighs 5972 yottagrams, and its radius is 6371 kilometers. There is so much information about our planet that it seems that scientists have studied everything about it. Unfortunately, this is an assumption that is far from the truth.

What is UNDER the Earth’s crust raises more questions than it answers. And to find the answers to those questions, scientists use any method they can get their hands on. What ancient planet could be hidden inside the one we inhabit? How does the earth’s crust sound? How did the deepest journey into the Earth come to a stop?

Mysterious Structure Found Inside Earth

Our Earth consists of three main layers. The first to consider is the crust. This is the outermost layer of the planet. Its depth ranges from 5 to 75 kilometers. The thickest layers of the crust are found on the continents and the thinnest at the bottom of the oceans. The Earth’s crust is made up of plates that constantly move at the same rate as our nails grow.

This movement is due to the mantle, the next layer of the Earth. The depth of the Earth’s mantle is about – 2890 kilometers. This layer consists of silicate rock heated to 900 degrees Celsius near the crust and up to 4000 degrees Celsius at depth. When this glowing substance erupts upward, volcanic eruptions occur.

Finally, the last layer of the planet is the most mysterious. This is the core—the heart of our Earth. The radius of the core is about 2180 kilometers. The inner core is solid and is probably made of iron. The outer one is liquid and is made of an alloy of nickel and iron.

Moreover, the inner core rotates at a different speed than our planet. To explore the secrets of the inner layers of our world, scientists regularly perform various measurements. During one such seismic tomography of our planet, scientists discovered something strange: the mysterious lumps floating in the Earth’s mantle. Some of these clumps join together to form large-scale regions. The two largest are located under Africa and the Pacific Ocean.

Geological anomaly under Africa and the Pacific Ocean

Rather than floating harmlessly in the Earth’s mantle, they are creating a unique anomaly.

In particular, it is the South African anomaly, which weakens our planet’s magnetic field. Serious changes in the magnetic field can lead to catastrophic consequences, up to and including a change in the polls. The anomaly, however, is not as strong as it could be. So what is the reason for it?

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Origin of water on Earth: Scientists say it probably came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists have long wondered about the origin of the Earth’s water. Until now, the official version was that the volatile elements (such as hydrogen, nitrogen, or carbon), and even the first organic matter, arrived here from the outside, brought by comets and by a class of meteorites of very ancient origin, the carbonaceous chondrites. Both classes of objects formed beyond Jupiter’s orbit and then “migrated” into the Solar System. Now, a new study has just revealed that this was not the case.

Of course, determining exactly where these essential elements came from means being able to understand how water, and life, got to Earth.

Water on Earth and its origin

Now, a group of researchers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington has just published an article in Science according to which the water on our planet is not the same as that which was distributed, in the form of ice, throughout the Solar System, but came much later. And not aboard distant comets from the confines of the Solar System, but much closer: from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

For Conel Alexander, principal investigator of the study, a large amount of water ice was distributed throughout the early Solar System. However, that ice was never part of the materials that were added to form the Earth. That early ice can be found today in objects such as comets or the aforementioned carbonaceous chondrites. But their analysis shows, according to the researchers, that the two types of objects were not born beyond the orbit of Jupiter, as was believed. Instead, they were born, they were born in two very distant areas. Comets are formed in the outer regions of the Solar System. The carbonaceous chondrites formed much closer.

Alexander established this difference by calculating the proportion of deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) found in the water ice of 85 carbonaceous chondrites. The farther away from the Sun an object has formed, the more deuterium it contains. And if comets and carbonaceous chondrites formed in the same place, their ice should include the same, or similar, amount of deuterium. But this is not the case.

The ice of the meteorites analyzed contains much less deuterium than comets, suggesting that the latter formed much farther from the Sun. This result also contradicts the most widely accepted models of how the Solar System acquired its current architecture.

For Alexander, the deuterium content of the carbonaceous chondrites indicates that these meteorites must have formed much closer to the Sun than comets. Specifically, in the asteroid belt, the large ring of rocks lies between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits. And that, the study suggests, is precisely where Earth’s water comes from. Alexander is convinced that the results of his research will force the revision of current theories. In addition, they will contribute, in passing, to resolving a variety of questions that have so far resisted science.

Where Did Earth’s Water Come From?

If we stick to what we know, Earth’s water came from comets and asteroids. That’s the most widely accepted theory. But a new study suggests that perhaps not all water reached our planet through this system.

Searching for the Origins of Earth’s Water

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe (after all, it is composed of a single proton and an electron). In the study, a group of researchers suggests that some of this element could come from the solar nebula. That is the cloud of gas and dust in which the Sun formed. If the approach is correct, it could replace the best-known theory about how water arrived on Earth.

It has always been thought that water arrived through the impact of comets and asteroids until now. After the formation of the Sun, the young star expelled most of the material from the cloud in which it was located. When its fusion began, the solar wind sent a lot of hydrogen from its outermost layers into the interior of the solar system. To the vicinity of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the outer solar system.

Here, we find the giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and a multitude of comets and asteroids. As you may know, Comets are frozen, rocky objects that can contain large amounts of hydrogen. Asteroids, although to a lesser extent, may also contain hydrogen. This is because it was a sphere of molten magma when the Earth formed. Its surface was kept in that state by the collision of asteroids.

The cooling process of the Earth

With the Earth in this molten state, the water from the impacts of comets and asteroids evaporated into space. But, over time, our planet cooled down. Earth’s water may have begun to arrive from asteroid and comet collisions. Little by little, the element condensed on the surface, instead of evaporating into space. This scenario is supported by the isotope ratio.

The amount of the isotope of deuterium, compared to normal hydrogen, is a signal. If two objects with water have the same ratio, it is reasonable to assume that their origin must be the same. The Earth’s oceans have the same proportion as the water of the asteroids. All this would seem unappealable, but the approach has always offered some doubts. In 2014, some scientists analyzed meteorites of different ages.

Among them, are carbonaceous chondrites. They are the oldest known meteorites, having formed at about the same time as the Sun. As well as meteorites that may have originated from the asteroid, Vesta. It formed in the same region as Earth, about 14 million years after the formation of our planet. They stand out for having a lot of water. So it is believed that they may be the primary source of water on Earth.

Clues of the formation of the planets

What does this mean, and why does water near the core contain less deuterium? With this model, researchers can calculate how much water comes from asteroid impacts. They also compare how much water comes from the solar nebula. They conclude that for every 100 water molecules on Earth, one or two originate from the solar nebula. The study offers a fascinating perspective on planet formation.

So does its evolution and how life might have arisen on a planet. The model, the researchers say, suggests that water formation is inevitable on any sufficiently large rocky exoplanet. This contradicts earlier conclusions. Earth’s water and its origin could be a very significant clue. According to an earlier hypothesis, the only planets on which life could form would be those with asteroids and comets that contain water.

However, if this model is correct, it would not be necessary. In other star systems, planets could have received enough water from their solar nebulae to have enough water for life to evolve. Most of Earth’s water is found below the surface. There could be up to twice as many oceans in Earth’s mantle as on the surface. It could be up to 4 or 5 times as much near the core.

The model

However, the model is not as robust as we would like. The hydrogen fractionation is not well understood. It is not clear how the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen changes when the element dissolves in iron. This is an essential point because it is an essential part of this new study, and the researchers had to guess what that ratio was.

In any case, the study fits with what was already known about the origin of water on Earth. The great novelty is that it gives a new insight into the possible origin of this water. It is very interesting, both to better understand how it came to be on our planet and to understand what the rocky exoplanets we have discovered might be like. If there need not be water-rich comets and asteroids, the prospects are more promising.

This in no way implies a greater likelihood of finding life. After all, we know that water is a necessary prerequisite. It is an essential building block of life on Earth. But there are other factors to consider—for example, the atmosphere’s composition. But studies like this will, in time, give us a much more complete picture, not only of the solar system but of other places in the galaxy.

The study is J. Wu, S. Desch, L. Schaefer; “Origin of Earth’s Water: Chondritic Inheritance Plus Nebular Ingassing and Storage of Hydrogen in the Core.” Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets on October 9, 2018.

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The earth has undergone a number of dramatic changes over its history and is still doing so today. But what was it like billions of years ago?

What was Earth like 2 billion years ago?

To modern humans, Earth would look like a planet devoid of life. This is because modern cells, which are many thousands of times larger than primitive cells, didn’t evolve into existence until 1.5 billion years ago. Only then could animals and plants start along their evolutionary paths.

Primitive cells similar to modern cyanobacteria and archaea were pretty much everywhere 3.5 billion years ago. Still, you wouldn’t see them because, like today, they were too small. Oxygen in the atmosphere did not exist.

An ice age that lasted hundreds of millions of years ended 2.1 billion years ago. With the global warming that followed, some cells developed abilities to photosynthesize and excrete oxygen. Oxygenation of the atmosphere was well on its way in year 2 billion. Eventually, this oxygen would kill almost all life on Earth. What survived became us.

The largest meteor impact in world history occurred in South Africa, almost exactly 2 billion years ago. However, what impact it had on the weather is not known.

What was the Earth like two billion years ago?

The day was 20 hours long, and the year was 450 days. The moon was 30,000 miles closer to Earth. It would have looked larger than now and had a more substantial effect on ocean tides.

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The crust of the Earth was more active than now. As a result, volcanic activity and earthquakes were more common.

The Earth’s magnetic field was half what it is today. The solar wind stripped the atmosphere more effectively, which probably accelerated the turnover of Earth’s atmosphere from anaerobic to aerobic. This was to intensify and accelerate the extinction from toxic oxygen increasing in the atmosphere.

The color of the sky would be bluer and less purple than today due to lower levels of oxygen and higher nitrogen levels. The Earth would have no green plants or any other vegetation to add to the many colors seen everywhere today.