The alien object that fell on France could turn the world's history upside down

A famous alien object could disrupt current planetary formation theories, rewriting Earth's early history.

According to a June 16 paper published in the journal Science, the theory is that rocky planets like Earth and Mars collect volatile elements like hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and rare gases. they form can be toppled.

Professor Sujoy Mukhopadyay and Dr. Sandrine Péron from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis - USA) said that the previous basic assumption about planet formation was that early planets first collected these volatiles from the nascent Solar Nebula.

Picture 1 of The alien object that fell on France could turn the world's history upside down

The Chassigny meteorite, a precious alien object, crashed in France.

This theory also applies to other star systems. Young planets are usually spheres of molten rock, which makes it easier for volatiles to dissolve into magma oceans, which then build up their atmospheres through degassing. The volatile stockpile was further replenished by chondritic meteorites that hit the planet afterward.

According to PHYS, scientists also expect volatile elements on Earth and Mars to reflect the composition of the Solar Nebula, especially by the isotopic ratios of noble gases, especially krypton. . Mars is of particular interest because it formed rapidly, solidifying only 4 million years after the birth of the solar system, while Earth took 50-100 million years.

But the Chassigny meteorite that fell from Mars in northeastern France in 1815 changed all that. Using state-of-the-art krypton isotope measurements, scientists from the Rare Gas Laboratory at UC Davis helped deduce the origin of the elements in the rock.

Amazingly, the krypton isotopes correspond to isotopes from chondritic meteorites, not the Solar Nebula. The meteorite mass shows that the interior of Mars is entirely composed of krypton from chondritic meteorites, while the Martian atmosphere contains elements originating from the Solar Nebula.

This also suggests that the Martian atmosphere could not have been formed entirely by escaping gas from the mantle as we thought. And the discovery also shows that Mars has completed basic development steps before the Solar Nebula is dissipated by radiation from the Sun. This also requires the planet to be cold shortly after accretion.

Given the surprising similarities between Mars and Earth, this also leads to the question that the formation of the Earth was not what we imagined: Early Earth's history needs further study and rewriting. .

Update 18 June 2022
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