Earth ring theory could explain a lot, scientists say.
Even though the known universe continues to expand and scientists are regularly making new discoveries, being taught about the solar system and its eight planets (remember that Pluto isn't classed as one anymore) is one of the first things many of you might remember from school.
As well as Earth being the third planet from the Sun, there's also speculation about Mars' potential ability to harbor life, Jupiter's role as the biggest planet, Venus being even hotter than Mercury, and Saturn with its signature rings.
Continuing their many theories about how the Universe was formed and how it continues to evolve, scientists now claim that Earth might've looked like Saturn many eons ago.
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There's not much that connects Saturn and Earth, with the latter being the only planet known to support life and the former being a mere -288.4° Fahrenheit (-178° Celsius ) and a giant ball of gas.
But, did Earth once have its own Saturn-inspired rings and can it be traced to an ancient event?
Posted during a September 12 edition of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, lead author Andrew Tomkins, geologist and professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Monash University in Melbourne, claims that Earth might've sported its own ring some 466 million years ago.
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The Ordovician Period was a crucial time during Earth's evolution, with shifting plate tectonics and an apparent peak in meteorite strikes. Nearly two dozen impact craters have been found from around this time, and with them all being within 30 degrees of Earth’s equator, Tomkins thinks they rained down from a rocky ring that circled the planet.
Discussing his findings, Tomkins explained: "It’s statistically unusual that you would get 21 craters all relatively close to the equator. It shouldn’t happen. They should be randomly distributed."
When objects get close enough to a planet, they hit the planet’s Roche limit and are pulled apart by the celestial body's gravitational pull. NASA claims that Saturn's rings were possibly caused by debris from icy moons being pulled in.
Tomkins thinks a large asteroid about 12 kilometers in diameter hit Earth's Roche limit and had its debris pulled into a ring around the equator.
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21 known craters from the Ordovician Period have been found near the equator, while only 30% of Earth’s land that could preserve a crater was near the equator at that time. If the impacts were random, most craters should be further away.
The team also points to a February 2022 study that looked at impact craters on Earth, the moon, and Mars, where there was only an Ordovician impact spike on Earth. Vincent Eke, an associate professor in the Institute for Computational Cosmology at the UK’s Durham University, adds to CNN: "The paper presents a pleasing idea that ties together a few mysteries."
About 445 million years ago, the Hirnantihan Age saw another dramatic decrease in the Earth's global temperatures, with Eke saying impact craters, meteorite debris, and global climate shifts could account for debris from a 'potential' ring.
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Even though Tomkins doesn't know what the ring would've looked like because the team doesn't know what it could've been made from, he thinks it would've been visible from Earth: "If you were on the night side of the Earth looking up, and the sunlight is shining on the rings, but not on you, that would make it probably quite interestingly visible — it would be quite spectacular."
As for Earth getting another ring, Tomkins points out it's an event that's likely only happened once in the past 500 million years.