Scientists have discovered the remains of an ancient planetoid in the bowels of the Earth (2 photos + 1 video)

Back in the 1980s, geophysicists became interested in two huge areas under the Pacific Ocean and Africa, where seismic waves travel very slowly.





After many years of careful study of this phenomenon, scientists from the California Institute of Technology came to the conclusion that in the depths of our planet there are remnants of an older planetoid.

It was hypothesized that about 4.5 billion years ago, when the Earth was in its formation stage, the planetoid Theia crashed into it. As a result of the collision, Theia fell apart into several parts. One of them remained in orbit and turned into the Moon, but the other two parts got stuck in a planet that had not yet been formed at that time and gradually went deep into the Earth.



High-density areas visible from (a) the North and (b) South Poles.

In the deepest mantle, seismic wave patterns are dominated by signatures of two large structures near the Earth's core that researchers believe have unusually high iron content. This high iron content means that these areas are denser than their surroundings, causing seismic waves passing through them to be slowed down.

In 2019, Arizona State University professor Mikhail Zolotov presented the world with a hypothesis about the theory of a large impact between the Earth and another cosmic body, but then he noted that no traces of the impactor that must have collided with the Earth were found. This hypothesis was taken as a basis by doctoral researcher O.K. Erla Qian Yuan and a group of scientists came to the conclusion about a single component of the Moon and solid regions in the bowels of the Earth.

Now scientists are figuring out how Theia influenced the formation of the Earth and why its parts have not yet become one with our planet.