Massive 100,000-year-long meteor shower could be responsible for Earth's shape

Elements found in the Earth's crust confirm the hypothesis

Earth has higher levels of magnesium and lower levels of silicon today than it does in deposits of its formative materials, leading French scientists to question "why?"

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - According to Daily Mail, a recent theory was made after a group of French researchers conducted an experiment to explain why the Earth was formed the way it was. Research suggested a massive meteorite shower hit our planet during its formative years and continued to do so for 100 million years. 

The theory is supported by the existence of the chondrite, a type of meteorite, which is speculated to have been formed from the cloud gas that created the planetary bodies within our solar system. Enstatite, a form of chondrite, was found to be made from the same raw material as the Earth.

Asmaa Boujibar and colleagues at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) conducted lab experiments to test their theory by reproducing primitive Earth's crust and its conditions. They melted chondrites under different pressures and concluded such conditions created molten rock that cooled and eventually formed the Earth's crust.

"Repeated episodes of production and erosion of the terrestrial crust removed large quantities of silicon, leaving the relative excess of magnesium we observe today," concluded the researchers.
This new theory claims that the enormous shower of meteorites hitting and crashing against the Earth lasted one-hundred-million years. Elements from outer space materials were left and evolved with the changing planet during that period. 

According to the report, rare-earth elements like the samarium and neodymium were found in higher ratios on the Earth's crust and mantle compared to most meteorites, suggesting the shower held more responsibilities than earlier understood. 

The current theory includes the process of accretion but is still unable to explain where the heat from our planet's core and the magnetic field came from.

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