Early Earth was a barren wasteland incapable of supporting life until a big protoplanet crash carried in the necessary ingredients, a new study suggests.
That collision of the proto-Earth and a Mars-size body — nicknamed Theia — has been theorized for decades, especially in discussions of how our moon may have formed from the resulting pieces of the crash. Now, in a new study, scientists say Theia also brought some of life’s key ingredients to our world, more than 4 billion years ago.
“We conclude that the moon-forming impactor Theia originated further out in the solar system [than Earth] and was volatile-rich,” study lead author Pascal Kruttasch told Live Science in an email. Kruttasch was a doctoral student at the University of Bern when he performed the study.
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