What Was the Planet 'Theia'? How did it Helped Us || The Dude Explains

 

Ever gone outside, seen the Moon, and wondered, how this Giant rock formed? Well, this celestial neighbor is not a gift from outer space, it was created by the Earth, and a 'less popular' planet, Theia.

The Giant Impact Hypothesis

It was almost 4.5 Billion Years ago. The Earth was pretty young and had just formed, on the universal scale. The sun had nearly 100-200 planets, some the size of pluto, some the size of Earth, including gas and rocky ones. Their orbits were unstable, and we had constant collisions with other planets, mostly smaller ones. One fine day, a Bigger planet, roughly the size of Mars, had a collision course with Earth. Remember in mind, at this moment, Earth doesn't have any moon.

Comparing Moon, when it first formed, vs Now

That planet is named Theia, by present-day scientists. So Theia, collides with Earth, with a massive force, and ejects a big amount of Earth's materials into outer space. Some rocks were so fast, that they reached the orbit of Mars, and some fell back to the Earth, but most of the debris kept rotating in Earth's orbit, like a ring. It all collided together and formed together this giant body, we call the Moon. So the Moon has material from both The Earth and Theia.

Fun fact: When the Moon was first formed, it was Extremely close to the Earth's atmosphere, and it slowly moved away. Now it is 384000 Km away from Earth.

How has it helped us?

It may be surprising, but we all are alive today, thanks to the Moon. Moon is the main cause on Earth for Tides. When life first began, it was just Amino acids, in the Ocean, and maybe some proteins just wandering around. The tides helped the resources and minerals on the Ground, reach the Ocean. That thus helped in evolution, and we can see those Minerals in animals' genetic material. Those animals evolved into us, The Humans. 

The Moon has helped us in many more ways too, It was used by ancient humans to predict seasons and direction. It acts like a brake on our planet, if it weren't there, the Earth would spin extremely fast, and have frequent Earthquakes too. It is used by birds and animals to migrate.

In this way, Theia was more like a fortunate event in our timeline, than an unfortunate one. Now let us be thankful to the Moon for being there for us, and not just look at it like a giant glowing rock in the sky. 

Comment down what you like about the Moon!

Thanks for Reading :)