Earth may have once had rings like Saturn

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Earth may have had rings like Saturn many, many millenia ago. However, the formation didn’t last long, and it eventually collapsed, falling to the surface of our planet, leaving craters where pieces of it landed. A new study featured in Earth and Planetary Science Letters highlights the startling conclusion that Earth had rings.

The three researchers involved in the study say that almost 500 million years ago, several impact craters were created all around the world, along the equator. However, the researchers say it is unlikely these “alien objects” originated from an asteroid belt. Instead, they believe that they may have come from a ring around Earth, similar to Saturn’s rings.

It might sound strange to think Earth had rings. However, researchers say it’s actually very notable that Earth didn’t have rings as far as we know through our own history. That’s because almost all of our solar system’s large planets have rings, though they all have different compositions. Further, it’s even posited that Mars had a ring once.

But you need evidence for a worthwhile theory, and the researchers have found some very compelling information. For starters, roughly 485 million years ago, Earth experienced a number of meteorite strikes throughout a time period we call the Ordovician. Additionally, several of these strikes and impact craters are well within 30 degrees of the equator.

Typically, meteorites tend to fall in very random patterns. If that wasn’t enough, though, the composition of the material found in the craters makes it appear as if the falling rocks all came from the same object or asteroid. Given this information, and the location of the impact craters themselves, the researchers believe the chance of the impacts behind random is unlikely—just 1 in 25 million. Those are crazy odds, which leaves one other possible explanation: Earth had rings.

But how did these rings form? Well, the scientists say they likely would have formed as the result of a near-impact with a very large asteroid around 466 million years ago. The asteroid passed so close to our planet that it was ripped to pieces, leaving the debris to orbit our planet like a ring. Of course, more work needs to be done to prove this theory as true. But it is certainly an interesting possibility and one that makes me wish we had actually had rings around our planet. That truly would have been stunning.

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