How earth lost 60 per cent of its atmosphere after a cosmic collision

NIRMAL YESODA

Researchers at Durham University have revealed that earth had lost up to 60 per cent of its atmosphere around four billion years ago. According to the researchers, a cosmic collision that led to the formation of the moon was the reason behind this violent event.

Earlier, scientists had suggested that the moon might have formed following a cosmic collision between earth and a Mars-sized planet.

During the study, researchers ran more than 300 computer simulations and found that earth could have lost anywhere between 10 to 60 per cent of the atmosphere after the event that resulted in the creation of the moon, the blue planet’s only natural satellite.

“We ran hundreds of different scenarios for many different colliding planets, showing the varying impacts and effects on a planet’s atmosphere depending upon a number of factors such as the angle, speed of impact, or the sizes of the planets. While these computer simulations don’t directly tell us how the Moon came to be, the effects on the Earth’s atmosphere could be used to narrow down the different ways it might have been formed and lead us closer to understanding the origin of our nearest celestial neighbour,” said Jacob Kegerreis, a researcher at the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University.

Researchers revealed that this finding could help to know more about the moon, and how planets such as earth evolve even after facing violent collisions. The Durham researchers also believe that this discovery could help to know the fate of the earth if a cosmic collision happens in the future.