Looking Into The Violent Past of Our Solar System

Looking at the planets and moons of our solar system today, it would be very easy to be fooled into thinking that everything always looked this way. However, over the past few years, scientists have learned to their surprise that the solar system used to look very different indeed. Listed below are some of the shocking discoveries that show how a series of violent events shaped our solar into what we see today.

1. Smashing of Theia into Earth

For long astronauts have argued over the question of how the moon formed has, but evidence over the past few years points to a dramatic answer: It was formed due to a direct collision of another planet with Earth.

As stated by the Giant Impact Hypothesis, within the first 100 million years or so after the Earth formed (4.5 billion years ago), a planet around the size of Mars directed impacted it.

Called as Theia, this small planet was completely obliterated by the collision. Earth, however, survived this a little better, with a huge mass of material thrown out by the impact - material that would one day reform and cool down as the Moon.

However far-fetched this theory may sound, but it now has mainstream approval, with evidence for this astonishing encounter mounting with every study.

2. Period of the Late Bombardment

It is known that the formation of the early solar system must have been a violent place, filled with rock and debris flying everywhere. The innumerable craters observed across every single planet, moon, even asteroid, in the solar system is the most dramatic evidence for this.

This matters more because each of these bodies show that they must all have formed and cooled sufficiently before the impacts began.

Known by the name Late Bombardment Period, this phenomenon might have occurred about 4 billion years ago. It was caused, effectively, by left-over debris from the formation of solar system being flung about like pinballs.

It was a particularly violent period, as per various craters’ evidence. In the start it wasn't clear what might have caused this sudden bombardment, but we now have a clue.

3. The five-planet Nice model

For a long time now, no computer model of our solar system's formation resulted in the arrangement of planets that we see now. This has been puzzling, because the overall process of planetary formation is something we can observe around other stars.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.techradar.com/news/when-our-solar-system-looked-alien