Researchers found evidence suggesting that Saturn-like rings may have existed on Earth in the Ordovician period, between 488 and 443 million years ago.
The presence of this type of system may have influenced the formation of our planet, the climate, the distribution of life and its discovery encourages the investigation of other rings that possibly altered characteristics of the Earth.
The results published this Monday (16) in the magazine Earth and Planetary Science Letters were obtained from the reconstruction of tectonic plates from that period. In this simulation, scientists found evidence of an intense meteorite bombardment, known as the Ordovician impact peak.
Twenty-one craters caused by these collisions were identified, all of which were near the equator. The data intrigued researchers, since the holes caused by this type of impact are evenly distributed on other bodies such as the Moon and Mars, for example.
The researchers explained in the press release that “the odds of this happening are like flipping a three-sided coin (if such a thing existed) and getting tails 21 times.” The discovery, then, challenged conventional theories used by the scientific community to date.
During this period, a large asteroid had a close encounter with Earth and, as it passed within Earth’s Roche limit — the minimum distance at which a satellite can orbit a planet without disintegrating due to tidal forces — it disintegrated.
The planet’s tidal force — which consists of the difference in acceleration due to gravity between two points on the same body due to interaction with another — caused it to fragment, forming a ring of debris around Earth, similar to the shapes seen around Saturn.
“What makes this discovery even more intriguing is the potential climate implications of such a ring system,” said study lead author Professor Andy Tomkins, from Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, in the press release.
This ring may have cast a shadow over an area of the planet, blocking sunlight and contributing to surface cooling. The period, which occurred near the end of the Ordovician, is known as one of the coldest in the last 500 million years of Earth’s history.
The discovery could help in understanding new factors about the formation of the planet, the distribution of life on the surface, the climate and the possibility of the existence of other rings in Earth’s past.
This content was originally published in Earth may have had rings like Saturn’s 466 million years ago, says study on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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