The instability of the largest planet in the Solar System has indirectly led to the formation of the Moon.
A team of scientists led by planetary scientists Chrysa Avdellidou from the University of Leicester (UK) and Kevin Walsh from the Southwest Research Institute (USA) has proposed a new model highlighting the special role of Jupiter in the formation of present-day Earth.
The research delves into a theory known as “the Nice model”, which discusses the wildly chaotic early Solar System during the first few million years after its formation.
During this period, the newborn planets in our solar system were still wandering, colliding with each other, breaking apart, and merging.
Jupiter is the first planet in the Solar System and may have helped shape several other planets, including Earth – (Graphic: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook).
These celestial bodies can be seen as protoplanets, as their shattered remnants gradually coalesced into the planets we know today.
However, one gigantic planet was born early in the protoplanetary disk around the young Sun: Jupiter.
Some models suggest that early Jupiter did not occupy its current position but moved after its formation, potentially influencing the formation of other planets. When and how did these events affect Earth?
According to Space.com, the research team focused on a type of meteorite known as EL enstatite chondrite, which has a low iron content and a composition and isotopic ratios very similar to the materials that formed Earth.
This indicates to scientists that Earth’s chondrites and EL may have condensed in the same region of the protoplanetary disk.
However, the parent body of EL seems to no longer be near Earth. Astronomical observations have linked these meteorites with the asteroid family Athor, found quite far in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The thermal history of EL tells an intriguing story. By using dynamic simulations, the research team modeled different scenarios related to Jupiter’s migration and concluded that its movement pulled the parent body of EL away.
The model indicates that this event must have occurred approximately 60 to 100 million years after the formation of the Solar System.
This timeline coincides with a increasingly validated hypothetical event: A planet named Theia, about the size of Mars, collided directly with Earth.
Jupiter’s migration caused the region of space closer to the Sun to become chaotic, potentially driving both Earth and Theia into unstable orbits, leading to their collision.
The impact shattered both of these primordial planets, which gradually merged over time to become the Earth we know today.
A part of both primordial planets broke off and wandered in Earth’s orbit for a time before coalescing to form the Moon.
Thus, indirectly, it was Jupiter that propelled Theia into Earth, ultimately resulting in the Moon appearing in the sky.
The research was recently presented at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, and published in the journal Science.
