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Posted by Urguy
 - Sep 30, 2024, 02:29 AM

Earth may momentarily have had a ring framework like Saturn's, researchers say

Ring might have caused some serious qualms about planet and set off outrageous global cooling

Earth may once have had Saturn-like ring a while back during a time of bizarrely serious meteorite bombardment, another review proposes.

Researchers evaluated 21 asteroid craters from the "Ordovician impact spike" period 466 million years ago and observed that these were oddly situated in a thin band of land near the equator, notwithstanding more than 70% of the planet's mainland covering being outside this locale at that point.

Ordinarily, asteroids strike at random areas so impact craters are dispersed uniformly as seen on the moon and Mars.

Specialists suspect the effect design near the equator was created after an enormous asteroid had a nearby experience with Earth millions of years back.

In the new research, distributed in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, they hypothesize that this giant asteroid fell to pieces because of flowing powers and shaped a flotsam and debris ring all over our planet, like the rings seen around Saturn.

"Over millions of years, material from this ring steadily tumbled to Earth, making the spike in meteorite impacts saw in the geographical record," study author Andy Tomkins from Australia's Monash University stated.

"We additionally see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain unprecedented measures of meteorite debris."

Researchers hypothesize that such a ring might have caused serious qualms about the Earth with "potential climate implications".

By hindering sunlight, they say the ring might have added to a critical global cooling occasion known as the "Hirnantian Icehouse", perceived as one of the coldest period in the last 500 million years.

This was a time of extreme cooling 463–444 million years ago, puzzlingly when the degrees of carbon dioxide, a planet-heating greenhouse gas, were high in the atmosphere.

The hypothesis reveals new insight into how enormous occasions could shape Earth's environment.

In the new review, researchers determined the surface region across continents capable of preserving craters  from that time.

They observed that locales in Western Australia, Africa and the North American Craton as well as little parts in Europe were appropriate for safeguarding such craters.

While just 30% of the land region was near the equator at that point, all effect cavities were tracked down around here.

"The subsequent parts framed a debris ring that rotted more than a huge number of years bringing about a peculiar spike in impact cratering rate," they said.

"This speculation might make sense of why all impact structures from this time are found proximal to the equator."

Scientists compare the possibilities of this incident to throwing a three-sided coin - on the off chance that something like this existed - and getting tails multiple times.

"We have assessed the likelihood that this impact structure dissemination resulted from random unrelated impactors at 1 out of 25 million," researchers said.

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