The composition of the Earth has changed due to collisions of the planet with other objects

A team of researchers from the University of Clermont-Auvergne together with colleagues from the University of Bayreuth

found evidence that the composition of the Earthchanged due to collision erosion. In a paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their study of the amount of samarium and neodymium in meteorites and what it showed them about the processes that led to the current composition of the Earth.

Previous studies have shown that planetsare formed as a result of collisions of material in accretion disks that form around stars in the early period of their existence. The characteristics of such collisions are thought to play a role in the composition of the resulting planets, such as their inclination angle. Previous studies have also shown that the Earth has a core of iron and nickel, surrounded by a layer of iron silicate mixed with magnesium. The top layer is a silicate layer. The density of the material decreases from the core to the crust, which, as the researchers note, makes the crust more vulnerable to collisions.

Previous research has also shown whythe bark contains heavier minerals. One theory suggests that they may have been pushed upward due to incompatibility with other materials. But these theories do not explain why the amount of some minerals in the crust is higher.

To explain this anomaly, threetheories. One of them is that the core is actually larger than what the researchers measured. Another suggests that this is because the material from the accretion disk had differences in composition. Third, as the heavier materials were pushed up and accumulated in the crust, some of them were blown out into space during new collisions.

Researchers find evidence in new workin favor of the third theory. They measured the amount of neodymium in meteorites, suggesting that their composition is similar to that of terrestrial building blocks. So they found that up to 20% of the Earth's outer layers could have disappeared due to collisions, which explains the ratio of heavy minerals like neodymium in the crust compared to other, lighter minerals like samarium.

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