Spectacular force: A georeactor deep in the ancient Earth's D''-layer (dark orange layer near core) goes supercritical - suddenly increasing temperatures to 13,000ºC. This turns rock into vapour, creating a rising bubble which pushes mantle, crust and atmosphere into space in a giant eruption.
Credit: Theo Barten
IT HAPPENED 4.5 BILLION YEARS AGO, when the Earth was barely 50 million years old. Life didn't exist; the planet was a violent, boiling fireball.
Then, without warning, the unimaginable happened. Deep within the core, a tremor started. The young Earth shuddered and erupted. From its bowels spewed a trillion-tonne column of molten and vaporised rock. On this day the Moon was born.
In his renovated Saxon farmhouse in Peize in the north of the Netherlands, retired nuclear geophysicist Rob de Meijer vividly paints a picture of the cataclysm: "The material in the Earth's mantle heated up some 8,000ºC and was completely vaporised.
This huge bubble of gas forced itself up through the still liquid mantle," he says. "As a result, part of the Earth's mantle and crust were blown away, as well as the early atmosphere. From the debris, the Moon could have formed rather quickly."
The Earth ejecting the Moon: isn't that a rather fanciful scenario? Not according to de Meijer and his colleague, petrologist Wim van Westrenen from the Free University in Amsterdam. They argue that this hypothesis is the logical consequence of new data, and also that an erupting Earth solves a number of unsolved and profound astronomical mysteries.
Weighing in heavily against the theory, though, is the fact that over the last few decades, scientists have reached consensus on a very different hypothesis for the origin of our Moon. According to that scenario, the young Earth was hit some 4.5 billion years ago by a primordial celestial body the size of Mars.
That impact would have been 100 million times as powerful as the meteorite impact that ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The heat of such an impact would have vaporised a large part of the Earth's crust and mantle. Under this scenario, the impacting behemoth burrowed deep into the Earth, only to bounce back again.
Yet escape was out of the question. The core of the celestial body, rich in iron, was swallowed by the much heavier Earth and sank to its centre. The remainder was flung out to space, together with vast quantities of terrestrial debris, where it ended up in orbit around the Earth. In less than 100 years, this debris then accreted into our Moon.
Today, most scientists agree this 'impact hypothesis' is the most likely chain of events. The case was considered more or less closed in 2003 after geophysicists presented computer simulations which showed that a Mars-sized impactor could indeed deliver a Moon with the correct size and orbit.
But with their outlandish new hypothesis, de Meijer and van Westrenen are rocking the boat all over again.
Birth of the Moon: a runaway nuclear reaction?
I read a rather instersting article about how writers approach stories regarding new scientific theories. And reading this article it struck me just how true there was in that article.
Once again, the guy with the new theory, in this case Rob de Meijer and his coleague, is being painted as mavericks. He is trying to attain legitimate consideration for his "radical" new theory. He has an uphill battle against the well established theories of his peers and they will do everything they can to debunk him and his ridiculous theory.
Well for one thing, why don't you let your readers decide for themselves whether a theory is outlandish.
Also, debunking theories, new or old is how science works. Theories are supposed to be able to stand up to scrutiny. Eventually, the evidence will either lend credence to or disprove the theory.
Not A 'Maverick' story in my world
From my read of the article, we have a scientist who has an interesting new idea about the moons formation that, if it proves to be viable, might explain some anomalies in the system, relative to the other popular explanations.
I don't see any "people are trying to suppress me" whining. I just see someone with a fledgling theory that seems properly (dis)provable and he's trying to put together an experiment that would properly put his theory to a test.
If he manages to build his anti-neutrino detector, I'd like to see what results it generates. Among other things, I'm curious about it detecting antineutrinos that are unrelated to either georeactors or human-built reactors -- and what that might expose about the universe around us.
THE MOON
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE MOON WAS CREATED IN A COLLISION. IT MAY NOT BE TRUTH. THE MOON WAS CREATED AT THE SAME TIME AS THE EARTH. IT NEED TO BE SUPER HOT TO FORM THE CIRCLE. IS LIKE A DROP OF WATER WHEN IT FALLS IT MAKES A PERFECT CIRCLE, BECAUSED OF THE GRAVITY. SO IF A COLLISION OCCURED THE MOON WOULD NOT BE IN A PERFECT SHAPE THAT IS NOW. IT WILL BE LIKE THE ASTEROIDS WITH NO FIGURE IN SHAPE. MAGMA ONCE IS COLD WILL DO DIFRENT SHAPES. BUT WHEN IS HOT AND CONTINUES TO BE HOT WILL FORM A PERFECT CIRCLE ONCE YOU DROP IT IN THE AIR. WILL FORM A PERFECT CIRCLE. AS THE MOON NEED TO SUPER HOT TO BE IN THE SHAPE THAT IS NOW.
Energy calculation
"....a one gigawatt nuclear reactor generates just 1017 joules a year.."
I guess this is probably meant to read "3 x 10^16 joules a year"
Calculations
Similarly " ...so you'd need the annual energy production of 1013 of these reactors to get the same amount."
I guess this should read "10^13".
Error in typography
On p5 of this article, surely the phrase "a one gigawatt nuclear reactor generates just 1017 joules a year," should read "a one gigawatt nuclear reactor generates just 10^17 joules a year,"
Errors fixed
Thank you, dear readers. Sometimes superscripting drops off in translations to the web, unless we keep out an eagle eye. All fixed now!
Wilson da Silva
Editor-in-Chief
page 5 (& printable) still broken.
page 5 (& printable) still broken.
The superscript tag isn't closed, so some text is missing and everything after it is in superscript.
You have (using the wrong brackets so they don't get exec'd):
[sup] 13[/su
where you need
[sup]13[/sup]
page 5 (& printable) still broken.
page 5 (& printable) still broken.
The superscript tag isn't closed, so some text is missing and everything after it is in superscript.
You have (using the wrong brackets so they don't get exec'd):
[sup] 13[/su
where you need
[sup]13[/sup]
I agree with the other visitor
Yes! Please fix your html so we don't need to view source to see the end of a sentence.
Also, and I ask so many media outlets to do this, put an e-mail address on your contact page specifically for typos, wrong information, etc, so we don't just post comments you're likely to not read often!