March 03, 2025 12:33 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Crucial to have Trump’s support, says Zelenskyy a day after fiery White House exchange | 'We're looking for peace, Zelenskyy wants Russia-Ukraine war to continue': Donald Trump after White House public spat | Volodymyr Zelenskyy refuses to apologise to Donald Trump after public spat over Russia-Ukraine war | 'Make a deal or we are out': Donald Trump tells Volodymyr Zelenskyy at White House | Himachal govt seeks fund from temple to support welfare schemes, BJP calls move 'shocking' | Injustice to opposition MLAs: Atishi writes to Delhi Assembly Speaker on suspension of 21 AAP lawmakers | We will leave for US tomorrow: Father of Indian student Neelam Shinde after urgent visa grant | 'Not joining BJP or floating any party': Abhishek Banerjee dismisses rumours of his split from TMC | Pune bus rape accused arrested after 75-hour manhunt | Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey appointed as new SEBI chief

NASA-funded simulations show how massive collisions delivered metal to early Earth

| | Dec 06, 2017, at 01:53 pm

Washington, Dec 6 (IBNS): Planetary collisions are at the core of our solar system’s formation. Scientists have long believed that after the Moon’s formation, the early Earth experienced a long period of bombardment that diminished about 3.8 billion years ago.

During this period, called “late accretion,” collisions with moon-sized planetary bodies, known as planetesimals, embedded extensive amounts of metal and rock-forming minerals into the Earth's mantle and crust.

It is estimated that approximately 0.5 percent of Earth’s present mass was delivered during this stage of planetary evolution, read the NASA website.


With the support from a NASA Exobiology grant and NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, or SSERVI, researchers at the Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI, and University of Maryland have created high-resolution impact simulations that show significant portions of a large planetesimal’s core could penetrate all the way down to merge with Earth’s core—or ricochet back into space and escape the planet entirely.

For a recently published paper in Nature Geoscience about the topic, Simone Marchi and his colleagues found evidence of more massive accretion onto the Earth than previously thought after the Moon’s formation.


The mantle abundances of certain trace elements such as platinum, iridium and gold, which tend to bond chemically with metallic iron, are much higher than what would be expected to result from core formation.


This discrepancy can most easily be explained by late accretion after core formation was complete.

The team determined the total amount of material delivered to Earth may have been 2-5 times greater than previously thought, and the impacts altered Earth in a profound way while depositing familiar elements like gold.

“These results have far-reaching implications for Moon-forming theories and beyond,” said Marchi. “Interestingly, our findings elucidate the role of large collisions in delivering precious metals like gold and platinum found here on Earth.”

Researchers at SwRI and the University of Maryland are part of 13 teams within SSERVI, based and managed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. SSERVI is funded by the Science Mission Directorate and Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Image Credits: Southwest Research Institute/Simone Marchi

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.