Earth Also Had Saturn-Like Ring Around It, Study Reveals; How It Disappeared

New Delhi: Earth used to have a Saturn-like ring of debris around it, over 450 million years ago, a study has revealed. study by Andy Tomkins and his colleagues at Monash University in Melbourne based on assessment of 21 asteroid craters from 'Ordovician Impact Spike' period 466 million years ago suggested that rings around Earth lasted for tens of millions of years. ring might have possibly affected climate of Earth as well. 

How Did Ring Around Earth Disappear?

As per study, scientists believe that ring has fallen into Earth causing meteor strikes near equatorial regions of Earth. remains of a massive asteroid were likely caught by Earth's gravitational pull, suggests a study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. This is reason why sedimentary rocks from this time contain 99 % L chondrite material (parent body in asteroid belt) at abundances 2–3 orders of magnitude above background, with extremely brief CRE ages.

"Over millions of years, material from this ring grually fell to Earth, creating spike in meteorite impacts observed in geological record," le author Andy Tomkins, a professor of planetary science at Monash University in Australia said. "We also see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain extraordinary amounts of meteorite debris," he ded.

According to research, all impacts occurred within 30 degrees of equator despite over 70 per cent of continental crust of Earth being outside this region, which cannot be explained by conventional ories. 

How Did Earth's Ring Impact Climate? 

Scientists suggest that ring around Earth might have some climate implications as it used to block sunlight. It also contributed to a significant global cooling event also called Hirnantian Icehouse. “We furr speculate that shing of Earth by this ring may have triggered cooling into Hirnantian global icehouse period,” report res.

Mars Also H Rings!

study also reveals that all large planets in our solar system have rings. Moreover, it claims that Mars also may have h a ring in past. study also suggested that resulting fragments formed a debris ring that decayed over several tens of millions of years resulting in an anomalous spike in impact cratering rate.

"We have suggested that a large L chondrite asteroid h a near-miss encounter with Earth at ca. 466 Ma, which caused it to break up as it passed through Earth's Roche limit. This can explain why sedimentary rocks from this time contain 99 % L chondrite material at abundances 2–3 orders of magnitude above background, with extremely brief CRE ages. We have furr suggested that resulting fragments formed a debris ring that decayed over several tens of millions of years resulting in an anomalous spike in impact cratering rate. This hyposis may explain why all impact structures from this time are located proximal to equator; impacts from bodies originating in asteroid belt are expected to be randomly distributed across globe. We have estimated probability that this impact structure distribution resulted from random unrelated impactors at 1 in 25 million. We speculate that this ring may have promoted coldest global cooling event in last 540 million years, Hirnantian Icehouse period.' summary of report res.