• News
  • Film and TV
  • Music
  • Tech
  • Features
  • Celebrity
  • Politics
  • Weird
  • Community
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Submit Your Content
Collision that formed the moon could be cause of mysterious blobs hidden in Earth

Home> News

Published 14:40 5 Nov 2023 GMT

Collision that formed the moon could be cause of mysterious blobs hidden in Earth

A new theory has helped shed light on mysterious blobs hidden in Earth's mantle

Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard Kaonga

New research has suggested the collision that likely formed the moon could be responsible for another mystery on planet Earth.

The most widely agreed theory on how the Earth came to be is known as the giant-impact hypothesis. This theory, as the name implies, suggests that billions of years ago an ancient planet, called Theia, smashed into the Earth.

Scientists believe the debris from this collision went on to form the moon we see in the sky today.

Advert

Though there is one question that has baffled experts all over the world - what happened to the other fragments of Theia?

The most widely agreed theory on how the Earth even came to be is known as the giant-impact hypothesis.
Getty Stock Images

A new study, that was published on Wednesday (1 November) in the journal Nature, has offered up an explanation.

Molten slabs of Theia could have embedded themselves within the Earth’s mantle after the impact before eventually solidifying, according to the theory.

Advert

These slabs are known by geologist and geophysicists and are two distinct blobs within the Earth’s mantle. These masses are called large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) and were first detected in the 1980s underneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean.

According to the study, the two blobs are ‘compositionally distinct from the surrounding mantle’, thus strengthening the new theory.

“Direct evidence for the existence of Theia remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate that a fraction of Theia mantle mate-rial (TMM) could have entered the largely solid lower layer of the post-impact Earth’s mantle during the canonical Moon-forming impact,” the study states.

Advert

“This mostly molten TMM could later have solidified and sunk to Earth’s lowermost mantle and now constitute the seismically observed large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs)1 in the present day.”

Dr Qian Yuan, a geophysicist and postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and the new study’s lead author, has explained that at this stage it is only a hypothesis, and he has invited others to do research on the topic, according to CNN.

According to the study, the two blobs are ‘compositionally distinct from the surrounding mantle’.
Getty Stock Image

“I also want to stress this is an idea; this is a hypothesis. There’s no way to prove this must be the case. I welcome other people to do this [research],” he said.

Advert

Other theories that attempt to explain the mysterious blobs in the Earth’s mantle do exist and the debate around them is likely to continue despite this new theory.

One theory suggests that LLVPS are heaps of oceanic crust that have sunk to the mantel over billions of years, seemingly unconnected to the giant-impact theory.

Featured Image Credit: FreelanceImages/Universal Images Group/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty / fpm/Getty

Topics: Science, Space

Gerrard Kaonga
Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard is a Journalist at UNILAD and has dived headfirst into covering everything from breaking global stories to trending entertainment news. He has a bachelors in English Literature from Brunel University and has written across a number of different national and international publications. Most notably the Financial Times, Daily Express, Evening Standard and Newsweek.

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

12 hours ago
  • 12 hours ago

    Everyone is pointing out the same thing as three US stealth bombers take off from military base amid Israel-Iran conflict

    Everyone is saying the same thing after President Donald Trump deployed bombers to a military base near Iran

    News
  • 12 hours ago

    Horrifying footage shows what happens when customer eats 'hottest curry' that waiter has to wear gas mask to serve

    Bengal Village in East London put the diner through his paces with the curry, which left him on the floor outside

    News
  • 12 hours ago

    Japan discovers metal that could drastically change the world after investing $107,000,000,000 into revolution

    The discovery will help fund Japan's bid to become a net-zero country by 2050

    Technology
  • 12 hours ago

    Lizzo discusses use of Ozempic as she reveals 'controversial' truth behind weight-loss

    The star has opened up about using it

    Celebrity
  • NASA finds unknown object in deep space that's sending mysterious signals to Earth every 44 minutes
  • Experts issue urgent warning over city-destroying asteroid that could devastate Earth without direct impact
  • $1.5 billion space probe captures never before seen view of the Sun that could change everything
  • Stunning NASA images of the Moon and Earth from the ISS left astronaut in complete awe