Did Earth coalesce from 2 medium sized planets?

When Worlds Collided.

Heaven and PreEarth were planets, a binary system orbiting the Sun. This happy arrangement continued for countless years, until, some unfortunate circumstance caused Heaven to collide with PreEarth, forming the Earth.

We investigate the evidence that the Earth is the child of such a collision. We show that the planets Heaven and PreEarth were of similar size and mass. We show that many of the Earth's topographical features, such as mountain chains and ocean basins, were created during the collision. We show that certain hard to explain features of the Earth, such as its magnetic field, can now be more easily understood. And, in establishing all this, we uncover a new theory on the origin of the Moon.

Much of PreEarth's crust survived the impact and is today the continental crust of the Earth. Although broken and contorted, giant pieces of the ancient crust acted as ships floating on a newly molten interior, insulating, and protecting, life from the fires below. Heaven itself, together with its crust, if it had one, disappeared into the interior of the PreEarth, never to be seen again. If we put the broken pieces of PreEarth's crust back together, we obtain the following map.

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This map is a flat representation of part of a globe. Hence, some distortion is inevitable.....

Read the rest here: http://preearth.net/

 

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This is an interesting, relatively new, theory on the development of the Earth.

It is also a new theory on the development of the Moon (the usual theory is that the Moon was formed by a glancing collision, which is not the case here).

 

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Why the "no links for 20 posts" requirement?

 

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I read a bit on this.

It seems to be a very plausible idea.

But i think it would be more like two small planets collide to form a medium sized earth.

 

The overall state of the moon supports this notion.

PS- the planetoid that collided and formed the moon was called Orpheus.

 

(Insert Title Here)

It's an anti-spam measure.

Good luck promoting your theory.

 

Sorry Trippy. On this you are incorrect.

There is actually plenty of evidence for the idea, which by the way, is not a new theory.

It arose out of the Apollo program to the moon, in which moon rocks were returned to Earth and underwent deep analysis. The interesting thing is the striking similarity between moon rocks and Earth rocks. Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and so were the moon rocks. Similar minerals. Similar rocks.

The previous theories suggested that the moon coalesced independently from the cloud of material orbiting the sun. If so, the rocks would be more similar to meteors, and not the same as Earth rocks.

The modern view of the origin of the moon is that a smaller planet (probably not a 'twin' ) suffered a glancing collision with the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, causing vast amounts of debris to fly into space - some from the early Earth, and some from the smaller, Mars sized, collider. Eventually the debris coalesced with most falling back to Earth, but some forming the moon.

Initially the moon was much closer to the Earth, but the rotational momentum of the Earth has been slowly transferred to the moon, moving it slowly and gradually into a wider orbit.

Incidentally, preearth, you can get around the anti-spam measure by typing the web reference into your post, with a deliberate error such as a space, and asking another member to check it and re-post it. I would be happy to do this. Obviously if it is spam, I will not re-post it, but I am sure it is an honest reference.

 

The oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio of lunar samples is indistinguishable from the terrestrial oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio.

This means that the impactor had to have essentially the same oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio, that is, it had to be a twin (binary) of the Earth.

So, the Moon was formed from the glancing collision of a former moon,... which is not really satisfactory at all, is it?

 

Sorry Trippy.

Some misunderstanding here. I agree that the way preearth presented the theory does not gel with known facts. Certainly the collision predates Pangaea by a long way. 4.5 billion years ago.

I also disagree that it has to be a twin to Earth. The standard theory, supported by detailed computer modelling, is of a Mars size body, and a glancing collision. The debris that coalesced would be from both bodies.

There is heaps of evidence that the moon arose from such a collision.

 

There is not as much evidence as you seem to think.

Well, maybe I should say that there is various evidence, but it is contradictory.

Like I said, the oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio of lunar samples is indistinguishable from the terrestrial oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio.

This means that the impactor had to have essentially the same oxygen-17/oxygen-18 ratio, that is, it had to be a twin (binary) of the Earth.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/2382.pdf

So, the Moon had to be formed from the impact of a former moon,... which is not really satisfactory at all, is it.

 

The whole idea of the theory is summarized by this animated GIF:

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The impact area was that within the circle.

Pangea (considered as a land area on PreEarth) was outside the circle.

The collision caused PreEarth to expand in size. It was this expansion in size that caused the continents to spilt apart and break up into what we now call continents.

 

Preearth

What you are talking of is a physical impossibility. Pangaea existed in the late Carboniferous, about 300 million years ago. The impact that created the moon was 4.5 billion years ago. Something of a discrepancy, do you not think?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYgEwXWilUc

 

Did men live on one planet and women on the other?

 

Me too; but because I have other objections also and because I am lazy, I have not done the following simple calculation:

Assume "preEarth" and "heaven" are equal masses (each half of earth's current mass) and are separated by 1000 miles and even neglect any initial relative kinetic energy they may have. I.e. just calculate the gravitational potential of each in the field of the other. Then assume it is all converted into kinetic energy when they collide. Assume they are all iron and at 300 degree K intitially (both very conservative assumptions as is neglect of initial KE)

I suspect that much KE will melt the Earth - no crust would survive. If my suspicions are correct, then his whole theory is obvious nonsense.

 

Billy T,... from what you ask, it is clear that you have a least flicked through the paper. Thanks.

First comment; As you know, the calculation you ask for is essentially done in the paper.

The calculation that has been done for you calculates the energy rise that results from the coalescing of the two planets from the point just before the collision, that is, when they are just touching.

This will provide the minimum energy that will be released during any collision. It is the energy released in the reforming of PreEarth and Heaven into the Earth. This just involves placing PreEarth next to Heaven and letting gravity transform them into the Earth. Of course, this does not incorporate any kinetic energy that the two original planets may have had.

The energy involved in getting from 1000 km out to touching is easily calculated, giving you what you what.

Second comment; The assumption that the planet is all iron, is completely unrealistic as the mantle and crust have a specific heat at least double that of iron.

I have had one geophysicist (professor from Monash University) state that the mathematics appeared to be correct.

 

In my quick skim, I missed it. What page is it on?
But don't bother to tell me as this post tells how to show mathematically that your idea is total nonsense.

That, if I understand you correctly, is a totally inadequate estimate of the heating. I want to include all the KE they gain by falling together from an initial separation of 100,000 miles. You seem be starting with them in initial contact and then having them fall together only by their radii.

Yes, it does seem I understood you correctly. Off hand I would guess that the "energy of reforming" from initial contact is less than 1% of the true minimum. I.e. they will accelerate as they approach each other and gain much more KE during their fall together than just in the last part of the fall (or "reforming" if you like) with only one radii separation to be reduced to zero separation.

Yes it is easy to do correctly, but I would need to look up value of G etc. - Do it and see the true heating energy is on the order of 100 times greater than what you are considering with only "reforming" heating. I.e. KE of 100,000 mile fall together will easily melt the entire earth, even if you assume all the matter has the crustal specific heat. I will try to type draw to illustrate the point:

Your "reforming heating" is: oo ---> O

The KE of the "fall together" is:
o..................................................o ---> O

Where the string of dots (..............................) represents the initial 100,000 mile separation. To keep it simple, I conservatively neglected both their relative initial KE and the last part of the energy gain during the coalescing. That is more complex to correctly calculate as you no longer have spherical masses, which can be treated as if all their mass was at one point. To make it more clear, I will do a little work and calculate for you the contact separation, where I prematurely stop the energy gain of them falling together.

Assume current earth has a radius of R = 4000 miles. What is the radius of two spheres with the same volume is the question.
I.e. let volume of Earth = V and that of preEarth (and heaven) be v where 2v = V. Neglecting various factors that depend upon units used we can state V = R^3 = (4000)^3 =64E9.
Thus v = 32E9. = r^3 = 320E8 or r = cube root of (320) times 1E2 = 682 miles

Thus you only need to calculate (with real units) the fall of two point masses, each with half the Earth's current mass, from 100,000 miles down to a separation of 2x682 = 1364 miles. True that underestimates the heating by neglecting your "reformation heating" but that IS negligible compared to the true minimum heating.

You can do this either by direct integration of their mutual gravitational attraction force between these to limits or avoid integration effort by simply calculating their total gravitational energy (gravitational potential, each in the field of the other or twice the gravitational potential of one) with 100,000 mile separation and then at 1364 mile separation. The difference is their total KE at the instant of first contact.

Ball in your court - you complete that calculation to learn your idea is total nonsense.