Our planet was flattened after a collision with a neighboring
Our distant ancestors were not very much mistaken when they imagined the Earth is flat. Of course, she did not stand on three whales or elephants, but it had a strange shape - it looked like a donut. This is the conclusion reached by Harvard University astrophysicist Simon Lock and University of California planetary scientist Sarah Stewart.
Simulations conducted by scientists have shown that about 4.5 billion years ago, when everything was still not settled in our solar system, the proto-Earth collided with a neighboring proto-planet about the size of Mars. She was named Teia. The two cosmic bodies collided head-on with such force that they merged into one - into the so-called synesty. The resulting alloy took the shape of a donut - an object, albeit not entirely flat, but strongly flattened. And hot.
The merged planets did not last long - about 100 years as a synestie donut. Then a small piece broke off from them, forming a ball of the moon. From the remaining material, the globe was made. The objects took their places, where they are to this day.
As a result of the collision of two planets, the Earth and the Moon were formed. But before they merged into one
Our planet for about 100 years had the shape of such a donut.
In favor of the theory, according to which the Moon “spun off” not from Teia alone, but from a donut, representing a “mixture” of two planets, is evidenced by the fact that the isotopic compositions of the lunar and terrestrial soil are the same. Scientists have identified this by comparing samples brought from the moon by the Apollo expeditions with those that were collected on Earth in areas with active volcanic activity.
In theory, the Earth could have remained a donut. But life on a planet of such a bizarre shape would have arisen with difficulty.
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Simon and Sarah believe that planetary collisions are not uncommon in the universe. So is the donut formation. Scientists do not exclude that someday they will find them, as they say, alive, in other stellar systems.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY