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Dynamical origin of Theia, the last giant impactor on Earth

95 points by bikenaga

by shadowgovt

1 subcomments

So the boil-down on this is "Here's a theory that says about 5-10% of Earth's mass was mostly carbon and came all at once, like if Theia was mostly carbon and we got hit by it, so we did some simulation and the idea Theia was mostly carbon isn't ruled out by our current understanding of how our solar system might have formed?"
If so, cool. It's a wise step to check the hypothesis to make sure it isn't immediately contradicting what we already understand.

by nehal3m

0 subcomment

by readthenotes1

2 subcomments

by echelon

12 subcomments

Imagine if life had evolved on Earth or Theia prior to impact. Imagine if it was intelligent and played witness to the giant cataclysm.
Given that intelligence took an awfully long time to emerge from LUCA, that seems implausible. But it's fun to imagine pre-Theia "Silurians". That sort of impact would have scorched earth of any trace or remnant of their existence. It feels as though there must be sufficiently advanced civilizations out there witnessing this exact scenario play out without the necessary technology to stop it. Though that fate would be horrifying.
Another thing to think about is that shortly after the Big Bang (if there was one, Lamda-CDM or similar models holding up), was that shortly after the Big Bang the temperature of the early universe was uniformly 0-100 degrees Celsius. It may have been possible for life to originated in this primordial interstellar medium without even so much as needing a host planet or star! Just life coalescing in space itself.
That early primordial soup, if it existed, could have seeded the whole universe. Most aliens might have matching molecules and chirality if those decisions predate our galaxy.