In a new study released in Nature this week, researchers state that Earth formed within just 3 million years. That’s notably faster than previous estimates placing the timeline up to 100 million years.
in Nature this week, researchers state that Earth formed within just 3 million years. That’s notably faster than previous estimates placing the timeline up to 100 million years.
A more traditionally accepted theory is that terrestrial planets, like Earth, formed through a sequence of collisions from asteroids that got progressively larger and larger, said Onyett. That process would mean it took Earth around 100 million years or more to form. In this mechanism, the occurrence of water on Earth may have been lucky, perhaps delivered by an asteroid or comet.
By analyzing the silicon compositions in samples of different ages, Onyett said they can piece together a time sequence of what was happening in the disk of dust before Earth formed. They found that, as the samples increased in age, the composition of the asteroids changed toward the composition of the cosmic dust that was being accumulated by Earth.
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