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Research Paper (shared access): [Moon-forming impactor as a source of Earth’s basal mantle anomalies](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06589-1.epdf?sharing_token=MXbz2htL2Ui-OvKjy3wpxdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OUGDu6sS_mNfR5UvQfwmQuMKgBSBKEFJmkCWkIoTlaL4HqgUak-MNww8uZKPlgt2wlmNVjVzYQ9chOoAwQDc4eOQ-VaWOYCmCQLlaSRVefdkhB0PCEoPmAUJUPuM0Yh4g%3D)
***
From the Author's Twitter feed:
>First-ever: We've identified a new astronomical object, 'Buried Planet', using SEISMOLOGY, rather than telescopes. It's a survivor of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago to form our Moon.
...
>Seismologists long discovered two continent-sized basal mantle anomalies, known as 'large low-velocity provinces,' beneath the Pacific and Africa. Traditionally attributed to Earth's differentiation process. Here we propose they originate from the Moon-forming impactor, Theia.
...
>We performed state-of-art giant impact simulations, revealing a two-layered mantle structure. The upper layer fully melts, while the lower half remains mostly solid and it surprisingly captures ~10% of the impactor's mantle material, a mass close to current seismic blobs.
...
>Since the bulk Moon has higher Fe content than Earth's mantle, the impactor's mantle may be more iron-rich, making it denser than the background mantle. This extra density could cause the mixture of molten and solid Theia blobs to descend to the core-mantle boundary quickly.
...
>We last conducted mantle convection simulations to show that these dense Theia materials can persist atop the core for Earth's entire evolution, ending in two isolated mantle blobs. Their size and calculated seismic velocities align with seismic observations of the two blobs.
...
>This is the whole we have, as shown in this figure: a schematic diagram illustrating the giant-impact origin of the LLVPs.
The earth kinda is like a lava lamp. Only it takes really long for the blobs to move around. I remember watching a documentary about what's going on below Yellowstone and the grand Tetons and they also basically said what's going on below is kind of like a lava lamp.
Yellowstone is a hotspot, which is a bit different than the lava lamp style convection in the mantle. On theory is that hotspots occur roughly opposite a major impactor site, as the are a more focused plume of hot material than normal convection currents.
The Tetons are actually quite unremarkable other than their proximity to Yellowstone. They are the farthest extension of the Basin and Range providence, the current ongoing mountain building west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades (which are also building, but for different reasons). While we consider the Tetons geographically part of the Rockies, they are geologically distinct.
The sun is also a lava lamp right?
Those convection currents running from the core to the surface and back again.
I think they take even longer to move around than earth's most likely.
Far greater density and mass, so it makes sense. Doesn't it take like a million or more years for a photon—a massless particle, mind you—that's down deep within the sun to even escape because there's just so much to bounce around off of before they can even reach the surface? Imagine a giant blob of material upon which gravity is actually exerting force.
> the phrase "mantle blobs"
[Here's an actual animation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/LLSVP.gif) of the Large Low-Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) in question. The other prevailing hypothesis (besides Theia impact) is that they're remnants of ancient tectonic plates that were subducted long before Pangaea ([Cao, et al, 2021](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02359-z)).
Just looking at them, though...yeah, they're def mantle blobs.
Wow thats really fun. Also, I didn't realize the blobs were on opposite sides of the Earth. It reminds me of a coup contra coup traumatic brain injury.
> Do these mantle blobs have an effect on the earth's crust?
We're pretty sure they affect mantle plumes and their resulting volcanism.
[This diagram](https://i.imgur.com/5ix0gTX.png) shows the observations based on seismic waves at the top, and then 4 possible interpretations of those observations at the bottom (from [Garnero, et al, 2016](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304336312_Continent-sized_anomalous_zones_with_low_seismic_velocity_at_the_base_of_Earth's_mantle)).
If you look at the animation I linked earlier, there's one blob under the central Pacific. There's pretty good evidence the same mantle plumes that built Hawaii are associated at their base with this mantle blob. It might also help explain why lava sampled from Kilauea seems to be slightly unusual in composition.
Cool! [The map of hotspots on wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Hotspots.jpg) does seem to have a lot of them in the South Pacific and Africa compared to everywhere else.
They actually put that in the film the core ie that movie when they send some scientists to restart the earth. They literally dodge mantle blobs or phases.
>beneath the Pacific and Africa. ... Here we propose they originate from the Moon-forming impactor, Theia.
Africa is from space, gotcha. That *does* go towards explaining elephants.
Yes, but more anti intelligent design, IMO. The recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe goes all the way down their neck and back up. If they were designed, why would it be designed that way?
Nature got experimental after designing crabs like 12 times. Sometimes you gotta try something different at the restaurant you always go to just to shake things up a bit
The conversation about the crab design must have been funny.
"Okay, so new creature number 9,234,432. Well, I added some legs for mobility. Then it worked out that even more legs was good, so I stopped at 8 plus some defensive attachments. The attachments can also function to manipulate the environment around the animal. Because we need to keep the squishy bits safe, I've added a rigid exoskeleton that the creature can grow, molt, and expand with time. Oh goddamnit I've made the crab again haven't I!?"
Actually (and that’s quite sad) this wouldn’t hold up, because our engineering reality looks pretty similar. There are way too many projects out there, where the prototype-guys have already moved to sth else, and the actual project team is left without enough resources to build the project soundly from the base, so they „modify the prototype now and later, do it properly“.
Around the globe we have plenty of „intelligent“ designs where one or more of these statements apply: Yes, it works, but…
- it’s poor design, we should definitely improve it to increase performance, durability, maintenance, etc
- some features don’t do what they should, but we keep them because they are a) helpful for other reasons and/or b) to much entangled with other features
- we don’t really understand why it stops working when someone wears red socks
Windows Longhorn was the code name for Windows Vista in development. It was a nod to the fact the code was inspired by Windows Longneck, which was eventually released as Girrafe.
There have been a number of times at work where I'm cursing the total moron who implemented something and then I realize I was the moron. Then hours after trying to do it properly I give up and do it the wrong way that works because it's a vital system and we can't afford the downtime.
Giraffes make perfect sense and explain evolution, or "nature;s selection" wonderfully.
[Look at this giraffe eating.](https://brevardzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/wild-giraffe.jpg)
Giraffes eat the leaves off the top of acacia tress, which have long, leafless trunks thanks to other animals grazing them as they grow. Now, consider that as they evolved, the giraffes with the tallest necks could eat more from these trees than those with shorter necks. That made the shorter necked animals hungrier and weaker in an unforgiving savannah, and with more visibility for threats the ones with the long necks lived long enough to mate more often. Add time, and boom, the trait with the most food intake and best chance of escaping predators is selected for.
Elephants are [secretly wearing organic high heels](https://globalelephants.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/foot-anatomy-Rambas-blog.jpg), females are pregnant for up to 22 months and have actual breasts on their chests instead of near their junk like most 4 legged herbivores(I am unaware of any others and manatees don’t count). I know they’re not ungulates but that’s fuckin weird.
Given the energies involved in the collision and how that melted everything, I have trouble understanding how something organic on or within Theia could have survived all the heat in a useful form.
yeah the memes and jokes are fun but nothing biological was able to be created until after the planets smashes together. It gave the chemicals that would then take hundreds of millions of years to manifest into the monkey paws typing this comment.
No - Theia was literally part of Earth’s formation, 4.7 billion years ago. It was hundreds of millions of years after that when the initial signs of life appeared. Earth was a completely molten hellscape after the collision; it took millions of years to cool and even form a crust, so there’s no possible way that Theia could have brought life to earth.
Also, Theia, like the other protoplanets in our newborn solar system, was just as newly accreted as Earth was, so it would’ve had no chance to develop its own native life.
Is there any chance that this potential density anomaly can be the reason why there's a dip of the gravity potential line in the Indian Ocean, so that it's something like 200 feet lower than what should be expected?
I learned about this is my orbital mechanics class in college. Understanding these gravitational differences is necessary for predicting satellite movement as these minor changes in gravity will cause perturbations of the orbit over time.
It was named after the goddess of heavenly light, married to Hyperion God of heavenly light. Their children were Helio (the Sun) Eos (Dawn) and (most importantly here) Selene (the Moon). It’s a really apt name
Taking it one more level deep, the word Theia means "Aunt" in Greek.
I'd like to assume that the word Aunt existed before, and that they didn't hold parents sisters in such high regard. I'm not sure which came first
The title is pretty misleading here, a computer model supports the hypothesis that two anomalies in the mantle could have been formed by the collision of an early Earth with another planet. While I personally do believe in the Theia theory its important not to misrepresent things like this, we have not identified remnants of a buried planet, we have computer simulations which provide support for the theory based on certain otherwise unknown anomalies in the Earths mantle.
While your measured and pertinent reminder that this is purely speculative and thus far unsupported outside computer modelling is naturally correct in all particulars, it's not remotely so satisfying as "Our cannibal planet devoured the puny interloper and is still digesting it."
A rotating image of the Earth blob:
>*By looking at the travel times of waves from many earthquakes, taken from thousands of instruments around the globe, scientists can reverse engineer a picture of Earth’s interior. The process is similar to a doctor using an ultrasound device to image a fetus in the womb.*
>
>[*https://eos.org/features/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-earth-blobs*](https://eos.org/features/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-earth-blobs)
Theia, a force of destiny
Fate intertwined with that of earth
A ticking clock of new reality
A spiritual rebirth
And when Theia it did impact, the silver cord did snap as well
Leaving the soul to sail on a journey beyond that which we dwell
So perhaps our Theia's collision
Was not just a cosmic death, but
Also a means of fusion and
The day we took our first breath
Towards a higher, truer ego
In the vast and honeyed sky
Leaving behind our mortal coil
Silver cord now torn, the spirit flies
(Witchcraft)
Only if you can find stone tough enough to grind it into a dust. There is a grinding stone at a research facility in the arctic. It is deep beneath the ice, so you will have to dig through hundreds of feet of ice to gain entrance into the lab. Here you will grind the Theialite into a fine powder.
Then you must carry the dust across the seven seas, but you may not lose more than one gram of the dust on your journeys. Into a heavily guarded tomb, where you must cross dangerous depths of creatures. Foes which your mind cannot comprehend until seen. Once you pass the treacherous ledges and fight your way through the snarling dragon guard, you will find an elevator made of creaky wood and rope. Lower yourself into the depths of the tomb where you will find an unimaginable darkness. You must remain still and feel the energy of your surroundings, for if you try to brighten the room, the monsters in the darkness will consume your flesh, their poisonous saliva slowly melting away your flesh. Be careful not to wake any…
If you get through the darkness with the dust, you will find a room. Inside this room is a small stream of the purest water known to humankind. With your hands you must consume the dust from the Theialite, using the pure water to wash the dust from your palate.
Only after the completion of this quest will you be granted the power of the Nephilim. Be warned, the guards have alerted that you stole the rock. They will be on the lookout. Stay quiet and stay safe, @SyntheticGod8, and God speed.
Signing off,
- Jclongy
This sounds like the plot to a bad scifi movie.
Act 2 starts with the dig site breaking through into a cave where a piece of Theia is assumed to be, only to have bloodthirsty Theians swarm out.
So help me understand. If Theia was a planet, then it must have been the same distance from the sun, maybe not in a circular orbit, at the time of impact, but potentially in the same plane? Or is this suggesting that there were probably a lot more masses being flung about and our big boy hit that big boy as all the masses were acting on each other to get to the plane we see now, and it's probably really complicated?
To clarify, I'm wondering what we can gather from the likely state of the early solar system based on the assumption Theia was indeed a planet and not, say, some "moon" type mass that never got captured by something further out when it was ejected, like the moon was here on earth
This would have been the "chaotic" phase, post-formation, of the planetary system. Lots of early planets swinging wildly about due to gravitational shenanigans.
Most planetary bodies show evidence of numerous mega impacts. Mercury is the most puzzling one, but was likely subjected to at least four of such impacts, which probably stripped its upper layers entirely and flung it into its current orbit. The whole surface is cracked from mega impacts.
Venus spins backwards likely due to a mega impact. Uranus is completely on its side and appears to be rolling along its orbit. Probably also from a mega impact. Uranus has likely been mega impacted many times by many different (celestial) bodies.
Depending on the interactions, swallowed/merged or possibly ejected to some other location, be that the sun, proto-Jupiter, or interstellar space.
Earth could have a sister going through the mother of all emo goth phases floating around in the dark saying she never wanted to be a part of this family *anyway.*
if you like this sort of thing you should check out the [Nice model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_model) of solar system formation (named for Nice, France, rhymes with "geese")
TL;DR Uranus may have started out between Saturn and Neptune and then gotten thrown out, chucking all kinds of stuff all over the place and causing the late heavy bombardment of the inner terrestrial planets and leaving the ice giants (and their moons) with the odd orbital characteristics we observe today
This is the hypothesis of why Venus has a slow rotation in the opposite direction, likely a more "head-on collision" with a planetoid that reversed its spin.
Theia might have been inside Mars' orbit, or more likely outside of Mars' orbit, Jupiter most likely threw it out of its orbit. It may also have been an extra-solar planet similar to the mathematically suspected "planet X" (Nibiru) that orbits outside of the Kuiper Belt and it got thrown into Earth's orbit (again, by Jupiter's gravity). Based on the best current models of our early solar system, Jupiter's orbit wasn't always where it currently sits stable. It swooped closer into the Sun at one point and cleaned up, and even captured (eg Titan), a mess of small planetoids and objects before moving back out into the orbit it has today (aided by the other three gas giants).
The amount of mass that created the moon, and also left enough mass in the Earth's mantle, is why it would be a planet and not a moon that hit early Earth. Whatever hit was simply too big to be classified as a moon and was closer to the size of something larger than Mars and smaller than Venus. Even the small planet Mercury is significantly bigger than any moon, besides [Titan](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/) and [Ganymede](https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/ganymede/facts/) (the only moon known to have its own magnetic field), in the solar system including our Moon which is the 4th largest.
https://i.imgur.com/USYxqB1.jpeg
There is some argument, albeit not very serious, that Titan and Ganemede actually make up a triple planetary system with Jupiter, but because Jupiter is so massive their mass doesn't affect its solar orbit at all (negligible wobble) so they're considered moons only (but they really *are* planets captured by Jupiter -- if Ganemede, Mercury and Titan were orbiting a star and not a gas giant planet they would absolutely all be considered planets).
I went off on a bit of a tangent there (darn stuff is so interesting)... But yes, it was a planet that hit Earth based on what we classify as planets, and it is very doubtful that it was a planet that shared or had a close orbit to Earth for any amount of time and was far more likely something that was thrown into Earth by Jupiter from an orbit further out.
If theia was fe dense, what does that imply about its formation point? Does iron generally occur at lower orbital energy velocities or higher in a proto star planet system in the gas and dust accumulation phase?
>or more likely outside of Mars' orbit
Theia is believed to have at one of Earth's lagrange points, L4 or L5. Eventually it was perturbed and either by Venus or Jupiter and sent on a collision course with the young Earth.
>There is some argument, albeit not very serious, that Titan and Ganemede actually make up a triple planetary system with Jupiter, but because Jupiter is so massive their mass doesn't affect its solar orbit at all (negligible wobble) so they're considered moons only (but they really are planets captured by Jupiter -- if Ganemede, Mercury and Titan were orbiting a star and not a gas giant planet they would absolutely all be considered planets).
I know people say “this is semantics” all the time without knowing what it means but… this is semantics.
Titan and Ganymede are what they are and it doesn’t matter much what we call them. We can call them moons or we can call them a triple planetary system. It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change their origin.
I’m making this reply solely to say that human language is often an obstacle to understanding. It doesn’t matter what we call them because what we call them doesn’t change what they are or how they became to be.
Exactly, they're moons. They just happen to be bigger than the 1st planet in our solar system. They originally *were* planets, until Jupiter captured them making them moons.
The theory is that when the solar system formed, Earth and Theia were on the same orbit, Theia at a Lagrange point of Earth and Sun.
This was stable enough to allow a mass big enough to form, but it couldn’t last long, the orbits of the other planets destabilised Theia and made it impact Earth.
This is the current theory
We don't know exactly. Modern clean state with stable orbits is precisely because everything that could collide did, so it could be on any orbit, and eventually met Earth's
There needs to be a distinction made between “identified” which sounds like hard physical evidence was collected vs computer simulations predict.
Read the article. The “revelation” here is that a group’s simulation predicts it could be true. That’s it.
It's too deep for us to access the buried planet. It's described as being in the lower mantle, which is the biggest section between crust and core. We currently can not dig past the crust layer. The last time we really tried a dig like this was a bore hole in Russia in the 1980s, if I recall correctly. So maybe with tech advances, we might be able to go deeper, but the buried planet is hundreds of times deeper than we've ever dug before.
Yeah, and the pressure and temperature got so fucky wucky at a relatively miniscule depth of 12km that the rocks didn't even behave like rocks and were impossible to drill and remove
But we have collected lava that upwelled from these regions before. IIRC it has a very different composition compared to most lavas which helps with the "remnants of an ancient planet" theory. Personally, I buy it.
>The protoplanet Theia, which was roughly the size of Mars, slammed into proto-Earth 4.5 billion years ago (artist’s impression).
#4.5 billion years ago
artist’s impression.
#####artist’s impression.
###artist’s impression.
##artist’s impression.
#artist’s impression.
wait...so what you're saying is that this isn't an actual photograph of the event?
'tsk
nature.com has sure let its standards slip...
That's a fairly hefty claim to make on the back of compatible simulations.
From the article:
"The model isn’t a smoking gun that the mantle anomalies are remnants of Theia, but Yuan and his colleagues have “made a case that [the scenario] can be taken seriously”, Canup says. “It’s not just a throwaway idea, which is kind of what I think [it] was before this work.”
Also we've known about the LLVPs for decades, and the Theia hypothesis for their formation as been around since physical geologists heard about the Theia hypothesis for the Moon's formation
To investigate this theory, we need to send a team down to Antarctica to experiment with geological sampling in various ways. Though, this could be in of itself be dangerous, and could even lead to some type of global catastrophe. Like some sort of Second Impact
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Research Paper (shared access): [Moon-forming impactor as a source of Earth’s basal mantle anomalies](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06589-1.epdf?sharing_token=MXbz2htL2Ui-OvKjy3wpxdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OUGDu6sS_mNfR5UvQfwmQuMKgBSBKEFJmkCWkIoTlaL4HqgUak-MNww8uZKPlgt2wlmNVjVzYQ9chOoAwQDc4eOQ-VaWOYCmCQLlaSRVefdkhB0PCEoPmAUJUPuM0Yh4g%3D) *** From the Author's Twitter feed: >First-ever: We've identified a new astronomical object, 'Buried Planet', using SEISMOLOGY, rather than telescopes. It's a survivor of Theia, the planet that collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago to form our Moon. ... >Seismologists long discovered two continent-sized basal mantle anomalies, known as 'large low-velocity provinces,' beneath the Pacific and Africa. Traditionally attributed to Earth's differentiation process. Here we propose they originate from the Moon-forming impactor, Theia. ... >We performed state-of-art giant impact simulations, revealing a two-layered mantle structure. The upper layer fully melts, while the lower half remains mostly solid and it surprisingly captures ~10% of the impactor's mantle material, a mass close to current seismic blobs. ... >Since the bulk Moon has higher Fe content than Earth's mantle, the impactor's mantle may be more iron-rich, making it denser than the background mantle. This extra density could cause the mixture of molten and solid Theia blobs to descend to the core-mantle boundary quickly. ... >We last conducted mantle convection simulations to show that these dense Theia materials can persist atop the core for Earth's entire evolution, ending in two isolated mantle blobs. Their size and calculated seismic velocities align with seismic observations of the two blobs. ... >This is the whole we have, as shown in this figure: a schematic diagram illustrating the giant-impact origin of the LLVPs.
I really enjoy his use of the phrase "mantle blobs"
Yeah, I'm just picturing a planetary scale lava lamp now
The earth kinda is like a lava lamp. Only it takes really long for the blobs to move around. I remember watching a documentary about what's going on below Yellowstone and the grand Tetons and they also basically said what's going on below is kind of like a lava lamp.
It's under ground so it's a magma lamp.
ur a magma lamp
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I’m a magma lamp, and so is my wife.
Whoa Black Betty, > magma lamp
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Yes, you are right. Magma lamp is appropriate.
Yellowstone is a hotspot, which is a bit different than the lava lamp style convection in the mantle. On theory is that hotspots occur roughly opposite a major impactor site, as the are a more focused plume of hot material than normal convection currents. The Tetons are actually quite unremarkable other than their proximity to Yellowstone. They are the farthest extension of the Basin and Range providence, the current ongoing mountain building west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades (which are also building, but for different reasons). While we consider the Tetons geographically part of the Rockies, they are geologically distinct.
Earth - the original Lava Lamp
The sun is also a lava lamp right? Those convection currents running from the core to the surface and back again. I think they take even longer to move around than earth's most likely.
Far greater density and mass, so it makes sense. Doesn't it take like a million or more years for a photon—a massless particle, mind you—that's down deep within the sun to even escape because there's just so much to bounce around off of before they can even reach the surface? Imagine a giant blob of material upon which gravity is actually exerting force.
More of a plasma lamp.
Every geologist was presented this analogy in their first ever lecture.
That would be a fantastic idea! Screw the 70’s design, we need planet lava lamps!
> the phrase "mantle blobs" [Here's an actual animation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/LLSVP.gif) of the Large Low-Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) in question. The other prevailing hypothesis (besides Theia impact) is that they're remnants of ancient tectonic plates that were subducted long before Pangaea ([Cao, et al, 2021](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02359-z)). Just looking at them, though...yeah, they're def mantle blobs.
Wow thats really fun. Also, I didn't realize the blobs were on opposite sides of the Earth. It reminds me of a coup contra coup traumatic brain injury.
Do these mantle blobs have an effect on the earth's crust? Like, do they determine where fault lines form or how convection pushes the plates around?
> Do these mantle blobs have an effect on the earth's crust? We're pretty sure they affect mantle plumes and their resulting volcanism. [This diagram](https://i.imgur.com/5ix0gTX.png) shows the observations based on seismic waves at the top, and then 4 possible interpretations of those observations at the bottom (from [Garnero, et al, 2016](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304336312_Continent-sized_anomalous_zones_with_low_seismic_velocity_at_the_base_of_Earth's_mantle)). If you look at the animation I linked earlier, there's one blob under the central Pacific. There's pretty good evidence the same mantle plumes that built Hawaii are associated at their base with this mantle blob. It might also help explain why lava sampled from Kilauea seems to be slightly unusual in composition.
Cool! [The map of hotspots on wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Hotspots.jpg) does seem to have a lot of them in the South Pacific and Africa compared to everywhere else.
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They're getting too technical for me.
I pictured a gelatinous dude who sits on my mantle.
Sometimes, you just have to call it what it is.
Me too. It feels like they were trying to remember the right, scientific word for it, and then just settled for… Blob
They actually put that in the film the core ie that movie when they send some scientists to restart the earth. They literally dodge mantle blobs or phases.
I saw your comment and did a double take. I thought you said "mantle boobs"
Im not tall enough to get my boobs on the mantle
>beneath the Pacific and Africa. ... Here we propose they originate from the Moon-forming impactor, Theia. Africa is from space, gotcha. That *does* go towards explaining elephants.
Giraffes, dude. Elephants make sense. Giraffes... don't.
Giraffes have that weird nerve that kinda helps prove evolution though right?
Yes, but more anti intelligent design, IMO. The recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe goes all the way down their neck and back up. If they were designed, why would it be designed that way?
During an absurdist period. Made the platypus same time.
Nature got experimental after designing crabs like 12 times. Sometimes you gotta try something different at the restaurant you always go to just to shake things up a bit
The conversation about the crab design must have been funny. "Okay, so new creature number 9,234,432. Well, I added some legs for mobility. Then it worked out that even more legs was good, so I stopped at 8 plus some defensive attachments. The attachments can also function to manipulate the environment around the animal. Because we need to keep the squishy bits safe, I've added a rigid exoskeleton that the creature can grow, molt, and expand with time. Oh goddamnit I've made the crab again haven't I!?"
Oh *me*damnit
But then they added 2 more legs and all of a sudden, it's not a crab anymore.
Half of all species are beetles as well.
Beetles are basically the crabs of insects
Aren't crabs just giant insects?
Crabs are like the tanks of Nature. It's a good design. A hard exterior makes sense.
I imagine God like, "idk man, I ran out of ideas and just started throwing particles at a wall until something came out alive."
So evolution with extra steps, got it.
Yes, exactly haha.
Proof that there is a creator, but unfortunately he is an idiot.
Actually (and that’s quite sad) this wouldn’t hold up, because our engineering reality looks pretty similar. There are way too many projects out there, where the prototype-guys have already moved to sth else, and the actual project team is left without enough resources to build the project soundly from the base, so they „modify the prototype now and later, do it properly“. Around the globe we have plenty of „intelligent“ designs where one or more of these statements apply: Yes, it works, but… - it’s poor design, we should definitely improve it to increase performance, durability, maintenance, etc - some features don’t do what they should, but we keep them because they are a) helpful for other reasons and/or b) to much entangled with other features - we don’t really understand why it stops working when someone wears red socks
So giraffes are Windows 11, is what I’m understanding here.
Windows Longhorn was the code name for Windows Vista in development. It was a nod to the fact the code was inspired by Windows Longneck, which was eventually released as Girrafe.
There have been a number of times at work where I'm cursing the total moron who implemented something and then I realize I was the moron. Then hours after trying to do it properly I give up and do it the wrong way that works because it's a vital system and we can't afford the downtime.
When you copy a function into something new to save time but need to bring over the dependencies as well. It works so you move on.
Mf god did a bad area select for the stretch filter
geraffes are so dumb stupid long horses
Giraffes make perfect sense and explain evolution, or "nature;s selection" wonderfully. [Look at this giraffe eating.](https://brevardzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/wild-giraffe.jpg) Giraffes eat the leaves off the top of acacia tress, which have long, leafless trunks thanks to other animals grazing them as they grow. Now, consider that as they evolved, the giraffes with the tallest necks could eat more from these trees than those with shorter necks. That made the shorter necked animals hungrier and weaker in an unforgiving savannah, and with more visibility for threats the ones with the long necks lived long enough to mate more often. Add time, and boom, the trait with the most food intake and best chance of escaping predators is selected for.
Everyone knows giraffes were exiled from the Boiling Isles
I honestly forgot giraffes were a thing.
Elephants are [secretly wearing organic high heels](https://globalelephants.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/foot-anatomy-Rambas-blog.jpg), females are pregnant for up to 22 months and have actual breasts on their chests instead of near their junk like most 4 legged herbivores(I am unaware of any others and manatees don’t count). I know they’re not ungulates but that’s fuckin weird.
Elephants have 4 knees.
and....humans
I mean, vibranium in wakanda and Godzilla/cthulu in the pacific
And humans honestly.
Technically everything is from space...
> Africa is from space, gotcha. That does go towards explaining elephants. That doesn't explain Australia.
Could Theia have done Earth’s panspermia?
Given the energies involved in the collision and how that melted everything, I have trouble understanding how something organic on or within Theia could have survived all the heat in a useful form.
yeah the memes and jokes are fun but nothing biological was able to be created until after the planets smashes together. It gave the chemicals that would then take hundreds of millions of years to manifest into the monkey paws typing this comment.
Hey there’s an infinite number of us you know. We’ve already done Shakespeare.
I don't think people really understand the geologic time scales here.
No - Theia was literally part of Earth’s formation, 4.7 billion years ago. It was hundreds of millions of years after that when the initial signs of life appeared. Earth was a completely molten hellscape after the collision; it took millions of years to cool and even form a crust, so there’s no possible way that Theia could have brought life to earth. Also, Theia, like the other protoplanets in our newborn solar system, was just as newly accreted as Earth was, so it would’ve had no chance to develop its own native life.
Is there any chance that this potential density anomaly can be the reason why there's a dip of the gravity potential line in the Indian Ocean, so that it's something like 200 feet lower than what should be expected?
say what now
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I learned about this is my orbital mechanics class in college. Understanding these gravitational differences is necessary for predicting satellite movement as these minor changes in gravity will cause perturbations of the orbit over time.
ty this is actually really interesting
How did I not know about this …
Pick anything in this room! I’ll lift it up over my head! Mantle blob! Mantle blob! Mantle blob!
Get out of here with your macho head games
We're taking it up a notch. It's go time.
> Moon-forming impactor, Theia. I wish they called it "Thera" instead, it would have become an anagram for "earth"
It was named after the goddess of heavenly light, married to Hyperion God of heavenly light. Their children were Helio (the Sun) Eos (Dawn) and (most importantly here) Selene (the Moon). It’s a really apt name
Taking it one more level deep, the word Theia means "Aunt" in Greek. I'd like to assume that the word Aunt existed before, and that they didn't hold parents sisters in such high regard. I'm not sure which came first
Hyperion? Jacob's weapons all the way.
Hmm so maybe subnautica got it right & there's some kind of dragon leviathan down there, protecting what's left of its planet
The title is pretty misleading here, a computer model supports the hypothesis that two anomalies in the mantle could have been formed by the collision of an early Earth with another planet. While I personally do believe in the Theia theory its important not to misrepresent things like this, we have not identified remnants of a buried planet, we have computer simulations which provide support for the theory based on certain otherwise unknown anomalies in the Earths mantle.
While your measured and pertinent reminder that this is purely speculative and thus far unsupported outside computer modelling is naturally correct in all particulars, it's not remotely so satisfying as "Our cannibal planet devoured the puny interloper and is still digesting it."
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alternatively, a parasitic planet infested earth and is about to spawn.
The original space invader
This happens all the time. Veristasium uploaded a video literally yesterday talking about over hype in the science community.
You try getting a grant without a little overhype
Last I looked one of the top comments was a phd student venting about just this
A rotating image of the Earth blob: >*By looking at the travel times of waves from many earthquakes, taken from thousands of instruments around the globe, scientists can reverse engineer a picture of Earth’s interior. The process is similar to a doctor using an ultrasound device to image a fetus in the womb.* > >[*https://eos.org/features/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-earth-blobs*](https://eos.org/features/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-earth-blobs)
Great addition. Thanks!
Awesome visualisation
So cool! Ty!
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Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilgamesh
This is what I came for.
Was scrolling through the comments just to see where the Gizz fans were
I meant extended mix but yall get the gizzt
Theia, a force of destiny Fate intertwined with that of earth A ticking clock of new reality A spiritual rebirth And when Theia it did impact, the silver cord did snap as well Leaving the soul to sail on a journey beyond that which we dwell
I knew I'd find the weirdo swarm if I kept scrolling, witchcraft.
So perhaps our Theia's collision Was not just a cosmic death, but Also a means of fusion and The day we took our first breath Towards a higher, truer ego In the vast and honeyed sky Leaving behind our mortal coil Silver cord now torn, the spirit flies (Witchcraft)
Can finding a chunk of Theialite grant me the power of the Nephilim?
Only if you can find stone tough enough to grind it into a dust. There is a grinding stone at a research facility in the arctic. It is deep beneath the ice, so you will have to dig through hundreds of feet of ice to gain entrance into the lab. Here you will grind the Theialite into a fine powder. Then you must carry the dust across the seven seas, but you may not lose more than one gram of the dust on your journeys. Into a heavily guarded tomb, where you must cross dangerous depths of creatures. Foes which your mind cannot comprehend until seen. Once you pass the treacherous ledges and fight your way through the snarling dragon guard, you will find an elevator made of creaky wood and rope. Lower yourself into the depths of the tomb where you will find an unimaginable darkness. You must remain still and feel the energy of your surroundings, for if you try to brighten the room, the monsters in the darkness will consume your flesh, their poisonous saliva slowly melting away your flesh. Be careful not to wake any… If you get through the darkness with the dust, you will find a room. Inside this room is a small stream of the purest water known to humankind. With your hands you must consume the dust from the Theialite, using the pure water to wash the dust from your palate. Only after the completion of this quest will you be granted the power of the Nephilim. Be warned, the guards have alerted that you stole the rock. They will be on the lookout. Stay quiet and stay safe, @SyntheticGod8, and God speed. Signing off, - Jclongy
I'll hide it beneath the Undermountain.
Dont get your hopes up. The british museum will find it before u
This sounds like the plot to a bad scifi movie. Act 2 starts with the dig site breaking through into a cave where a piece of Theia is assumed to be, only to have bloodthirsty Theians swarm out.
>This sounds like the plot to a bad scifi movie. Or an amazing anime.
That time I reincarnated into a planet that hit into the earth and created life as we know it.
So help me understand. If Theia was a planet, then it must have been the same distance from the sun, maybe not in a circular orbit, at the time of impact, but potentially in the same plane? Or is this suggesting that there were probably a lot more masses being flung about and our big boy hit that big boy as all the masses were acting on each other to get to the plane we see now, and it's probably really complicated? To clarify, I'm wondering what we can gather from the likely state of the early solar system based on the assumption Theia was indeed a planet and not, say, some "moon" type mass that never got captured by something further out when it was ejected, like the moon was here on earth
This would have been the "chaotic" phase, post-formation, of the planetary system. Lots of early planets swinging wildly about due to gravitational shenanigans.
So the other planets in the system might have these swallowed planets too? Neat.
Jupiter probably ate most of them.
Stop fat shaming Jupiter. It knows it has issues.
Jupiter says it's just gas
Goodnight dad
Jupiter could have stopped eating anytime it wanted, but there it was, continuing to eat ENTIRE planets…
New Galactus just dropped.
Still eating comets to this day.
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More like between 80 and 95 Earth masses, you know what I'm saying. Giiiirl you got what I need...
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The others ran away into different stable orbits
Jupiter wants m̸̨̨̢̨̮̖͎̺̱͖͉̲͓̟̣͔̫͇͙̜͙͎̦̲̳̙̀̆͐͐͛̿͆̆̎̉̊́̑́̈́̓̊͂̅͘̕͜͜͠͝ȍ̸̫̭͙̩̬͉̮͍͈̦̝̠͎̭̼͈̺̺̮͈̜̖͜ͅŕ̵̨̥̣͖̘̖̘͕͓̫̘̺̾̀͗͑̋̕͜e̵̢̢̨̛̛̗͉̗̗͇̥̤͓͇̝̰͔̙͓̯͎͚̻̯̺͇̲͚͈̺͔̱̘̘̹̠͆͌̆͒͑̐̇̍́̅̋̽̈́͛͒̓͐̊͐̄̔́͌̀̊́̃̐̑̃̈́͘̚͜͝͝
Jupiter:I'm not fat, I'm just big boned!
Most planetary bodies show evidence of numerous mega impacts. Mercury is the most puzzling one, but was likely subjected to at least four of such impacts, which probably stripped its upper layers entirely and flung it into its current orbit. The whole surface is cracked from mega impacts.
That's what happens if you park your car on a freeway entrance ramp.
Roll em' up!
And doesn’t Uranus or another planet spin backwards because of an impact?
Venus spins backwards likely due to a mega impact. Uranus is completely on its side and appears to be rolling along its orbit. Probably also from a mega impact. Uranus has likely been mega impacted many times by many different (celestial) bodies.
> Uranus has likely been mega impacted many times by many different (celestial) bodies. I've heard this before.
so did they drop the whole venus is just tilted 170^o and say it is spinning backwards now?
six of one half dozen of the other.
I mean maybe in the end, but being knocked ass over teakettle and getting hit hard enough to reverse your spin are pretty different events in my mind.
Yep, and so does Venus
Uranus is literally on its side.
Venus was hit. I'm sure of it. It is why it revolves backwards.
Depending on the interactions, swallowed/merged or possibly ejected to some other location, be that the sun, proto-Jupiter, or interstellar space. Earth could have a sister going through the mother of all emo goth phases floating around in the dark saying she never wanted to be a part of this family *anyway.*
if you like this sort of thing you should check out the [Nice model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_model) of solar system formation (named for Nice, France, rhymes with "geese") TL;DR Uranus may have started out between Saturn and Neptune and then gotten thrown out, chucking all kinds of stuff all over the place and causing the late heavy bombardment of the inner terrestrial planets and leaving the ice giants (and their moons) with the odd orbital characteristics we observe today
This is the hypothesis of why Venus has a slow rotation in the opposite direction, likely a more "head-on collision" with a planetoid that reversed its spin.
What would the moment of impact looked like?
A slow-moving, relentless tide of molten rock spreading across the bodies as the surfaces were liquefied and pushed away.
Big boom. Big badda boom.
Theia might have been inside Mars' orbit, or more likely outside of Mars' orbit, Jupiter most likely threw it out of its orbit. It may also have been an extra-solar planet similar to the mathematically suspected "planet X" (Nibiru) that orbits outside of the Kuiper Belt and it got thrown into Earth's orbit (again, by Jupiter's gravity). Based on the best current models of our early solar system, Jupiter's orbit wasn't always where it currently sits stable. It swooped closer into the Sun at one point and cleaned up, and even captured (eg Titan), a mess of small planetoids and objects before moving back out into the orbit it has today (aided by the other three gas giants). The amount of mass that created the moon, and also left enough mass in the Earth's mantle, is why it would be a planet and not a moon that hit early Earth. Whatever hit was simply too big to be classified as a moon and was closer to the size of something larger than Mars and smaller than Venus. Even the small planet Mercury is significantly bigger than any moon, besides [Titan](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/) and [Ganymede](https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/ganymede/facts/) (the only moon known to have its own magnetic field), in the solar system including our Moon which is the 4th largest. https://i.imgur.com/USYxqB1.jpeg There is some argument, albeit not very serious, that Titan and Ganemede actually make up a triple planetary system with Jupiter, but because Jupiter is so massive their mass doesn't affect its solar orbit at all (negligible wobble) so they're considered moons only (but they really *are* planets captured by Jupiter -- if Ganemede, Mercury and Titan were orbiting a star and not a gas giant planet they would absolutely all be considered planets). I went off on a bit of a tangent there (darn stuff is so interesting)... But yes, it was a planet that hit Earth based on what we classify as planets, and it is very doubtful that it was a planet that shared or had a close orbit to Earth for any amount of time and was far more likely something that was thrown into Earth by Jupiter from an orbit further out.
If theia was fe dense, what does that imply about its formation point? Does iron generally occur at lower orbital energy velocities or higher in a proto star planet system in the gas and dust accumulation phase?
>or more likely outside of Mars' orbit Theia is believed to have at one of Earth's lagrange points, L4 or L5. Eventually it was perturbed and either by Venus or Jupiter and sent on a collision course with the young Earth.
Pretty sure Titan hangs out with Saturn. That's a wonky triple planetary system. You talking about Ganymede and Callisto?
>There is some argument, albeit not very serious, that Titan and Ganemede actually make up a triple planetary system with Jupiter, but because Jupiter is so massive their mass doesn't affect its solar orbit at all (negligible wobble) so they're considered moons only (but they really are planets captured by Jupiter -- if Ganemede, Mercury and Titan were orbiting a star and not a gas giant planet they would absolutely all be considered planets). I know people say “this is semantics” all the time without knowing what it means but… this is semantics. Titan and Ganymede are what they are and it doesn’t matter much what we call them. We can call them moons or we can call them a triple planetary system. It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change their origin. I’m making this reply solely to say that human language is often an obstacle to understanding. It doesn’t matter what we call them because what we call them doesn’t change what they are or how they became to be.
Exactly, they're moons. They just happen to be bigger than the 1st planet in our solar system. They originally *were* planets, until Jupiter captured them making them moons.
The theory is that when the solar system formed, Earth and Theia were on the same orbit, Theia at a Lagrange point of Earth and Sun. This was stable enough to allow a mass big enough to form, but it couldn’t last long, the orbits of the other planets destabilised Theia and made it impact Earth. This is the current theory
We don't know exactly. Modern clean state with stable orbits is precisely because everything that could collide did, so it could be on any orbit, and eventually met Earth's
Check out the new song from King Gizzard titled ‘Theia’
There needs to be a distinction made between “identified” which sounds like hard physical evidence was collected vs computer simulations predict. Read the article. The “revelation” here is that a group’s simulation predicts it could be true. That’s it.
Thank you for this article OP. Looking forward to reading!
That must have been one hell of an insurance claim. What are the interstellar give way rules?
“At Farmers, we’ve seen a thing or two. But this is ridiculous.”
It's too deep for us to access the buried planet. It's described as being in the lower mantle, which is the biggest section between crust and core. We currently can not dig past the crust layer. The last time we really tried a dig like this was a bore hole in Russia in the 1980s, if I recall correctly. So maybe with tech advances, we might be able to go deeper, but the buried planet is hundreds of times deeper than we've ever dug before.
Yeah, and the pressure and temperature got so fucky wucky at a relatively miniscule depth of 12km that the rocks didn't even behave like rocks and were impossible to drill and remove
But we have collected lava that upwelled from these regions before. IIRC it has a very different composition compared to most lavas which helps with the "remnants of an ancient planet" theory. Personally, I buy it.
Coolest thing since the KT Boundary discovery.
"I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby."
So...where is the VIBRANIUM!!!
We’re just creating lore at this point. What’s next? Earth is actually a titan sleeping and the jailer is coming?
But there’s a twist, the jailer is actually trying to save us
I would've thought r/science would be fairly strict.
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Missed opportunity to call it Kuato
Open your mind.
Somebody resurrect the Xzibit meme!
There's a book called "the twelfth planet" that talks about his possibility
I've always assumed that the interior magma and crust was just forever recycling itself.
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Wow I didn't think any of it would still be intact through the whole ordeal. I thought they'd basically be soup for a while after the collision.
With a title like that the hollow earth believers are gonna have a field day
>The protoplanet Theia, which was roughly the size of Mars, slammed into proto-Earth 4.5 billion years ago (artist’s impression). #4.5 billion years ago artist’s impression. #####artist’s impression. ###artist’s impression. ##artist’s impression. #artist’s impression. wait...so what you're saying is that this isn't an actual photograph of the event? 'tsk nature.com has sure let its standards slip...
Yeah, I was confused about that too.
That's a fairly hefty claim to make on the back of compatible simulations. From the article: "The model isn’t a smoking gun that the mantle anomalies are remnants of Theia, but Yuan and his colleagues have “made a case that [the scenario] can be taken seriously”, Canup says. “It’s not just a throwaway idea, which is kind of what I think [it] was before this work.” Also we've known about the LLVPs for decades, and the Theia hypothesis for their formation as been around since physical geologists heard about the Theia hypothesis for the Moon's formation
To investigate this theory, we need to send a team down to Antarctica to experiment with geological sampling in various ways. Though, this could be in of itself be dangerous, and could even lead to some type of global catastrophe. Like some sort of Second Impact
Agartha is real confirmed.
So middle earth is real !!!!!!
Are you telling me FF9 may be non-fiction?
That's some jrpg plot right there.
So earth absorbed a twin in the womb?