• News
  • Film and TV
  • Music
  • Tech
  • Features
  • Celebrity
  • Politics
  • Weird
  • Community
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Submit Your Content
Scientists discover remains of a 'buried planet' found deep within the Earth

Home> Technology> Space

Published 16:36 11 Jan 2025 GMT

Scientists discover remains of a 'buried planet' found deep within the Earth

The planet known as 'Theia' is thought to have helped form Earth as we know it

Emily Brown

Emily Brown

Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images / YouTube/NPG Press

Topics: Space, Science, Earth, Moon

Emily Brown
Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.

Advert

Advert

Advert

Given the vastness of the universe I'm sure there's all sorts of planets and stars that are still yet to be discovered, but scientists actually think they've found one of them right under our noses.

Literally - it's under the ground we walk on.

The theory comes in a theoretical article published in the journal Nature, in which researchers put forward their evidence that an ancient planet named Theia could have helped form Earth as we know it today.

Long before humans came along, Theia is thought to have crashed into the Earth more than four billion years ago, causing the planet to essentially become lodged into the lump of rock we call home.

The theory goes that the impact of the blast shot magma from Earth's mantle into space, and consequently formed the moon.

Advert

Though the theory is just that - a theory - at the moment, scientists have suggested that Theia may have helped continents to form, and that the fragments of the ancient planet have impacted volcanic activity on Earth.

Researchers believe they found fragments of Theia when seismologists discovered two continent-sized 'basal mantle anomalies' - blobs beneath the Earth's crust to you and me - beneath the Pacific and Africa.

If it weren't for Theia, we might not have a moon (Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
If it weren't for Theia, we might not have a moon (Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

These 'anomalies' are denser than their surroundings, which suggests they're made out of different material to the rest of the Earth's mantle.

Advert

By observing the anomalies in the Earth's mantle and comparing them to matter surrounding them, the researchers suggested that they may be buried remnants of Theia mantle material that have been preserved deep in the Earth billions of years after the moon-forming impact.

To help prove their theory, the research team used simulations to demonstrate how a part of Theia’s mantle could have entered proto-Earth’s lower mantle.

Theia is believed to have had a higher density to our Earth, so if there are moon samples which match the density and composition of the 'anomalies' believed to be Theia, it proves the theory that Theia once crashed into Earth which created our moon.

Theia is thought to have shot magma into space which formed the moon (Getty Stock Photos)
Theia is thought to have shot magma into space which formed the moon (Getty Stock Photos)

Advert

As well as this, researchers noted there are crystals on the moon, called zircon crystals, which are also found on Earth, and on Mars.

The team wrote that Theia’s matter surviving deep within Earth would ‘be a natural consequence of the Moon-forming giant impact’.

They concluded: “Because giant impacts are common at the end stages of planet accretion, similar mantle heterogeneities caused by impacts may also exist in the interiors of other planetary bodies.”

Choose your content:

7 hours ago
a day ago
2 days ago
  • The Adam Raine Foundation
    7 hours ago

    OpenAI faces shocking new allegations in case of teen who was 'coached' into suicide by ChatGPT

    The teenager's family claim the AI organization dropped safeguards when Adam Raine explored suicide methods with the chatbot

    Technology
  • Artur Plawgo/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
    a day ago

    The truth behind Earth’s newly discovered ‘second moon’ and why it won’t be here for long

    The 'moon' went undetected for decades

    Technology
  • Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
    2 days ago

    Tesla owner exposes the three 'hidden costs' of buying electric cars

    While electric cars may be the future, there's still a lot of 'hidden costs' involved

    Technology
  • VCG/VCG via Getty Images
    2 days ago

    NASA explains best way and time to watch Orionid meteor shower and 20 shooting stars an hour

    The stunning meteor shower peaks tonight

    Technology
  • Scientists baffled by rapidly expanding 'rogue' planet devouring everything within reach
  • Scientists discover life on Earth may have come from a giant meteorite four times the size of Mount Everest
  • Scientists discover interstellar object the size of Manhattan producing never-before-seen material
  • NASA unveils new plan for people to live on the moon inside giant glass bubbles