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
But why would georeactors be located in this layer, of all places? The answer to this question is also found in the recent literature. "The origin of this isolated reservoir in the D''-layer is to be found in the primordial crust," says de Meijer.
"It must have sunk like a brick into the then largely liquid mantle, all the way to the core–mantle boundary." There the primordial crust stayed, afloat on the outer core. "This layer could very well be poor in samarium, which provides a nice explanation of Boyet's and Carlson's results."
The sunken primordial crust has another asset: fissile material. In 2005, another team calculated that almost half of all uranium and thorium in the mantle must have ended up in the D''-layer in this way.
For de Meijer, everything began to fall into place after this discovery. "If there is any place where a natural georeactor can start up, it must be in the D''-layer," he recalls thinking. Wasn't it then possible that a runaway nuclear reaction in the D''-layer had ejected the Moon from the Earth?
"Actually, [the other team] could have come to the same conclusion," he says, pointing to the place in his garden where he was working when the idea struck him.
De Meijer went back to the drawing board to calculate. Not only did he require sufficient uranium and thorium for the spontaneous generation of georeactors, he also needed enough energy from these georeactors to launch the Moon. He started with the latter, imagining a simple model, with an Earth circled by a much less massive Moon.
"These calculations showed that it is possible to launch a Moon if the georeactor generated about 0.5 x 1030 joules. That is gigantic," he says. By way of example, a one gigawatt nuclear reactor generates just 1017 joules a year, so you'd need the annual energy production of 1013 of these reactors to get the same amount.
This would put the Moon at a distance of about a 100,000 km, much closer than today's 380,000 km. In the 4.5 billion years since then, the Moon has slowly drifted away from us – a process that is still going on today, at about four centimetres a year.
The next crucial question was whether the D''-layer contained enough uranium and thorium at that time for georeactors to exist, and whether these could generate enough energy.
At first, the prospects were unfavourable. The estimated concentration of uranium and thorium in the D''-layer 4.5 billion years ago was 0.6 parts per million (ppm), while no less than 250 ppm was necessary for a georeactor. So de Meijer was short by a factor of 400 and his idea seemed to be somewhat doomed.
But again, geochemistry came to his rescue. The D''-layer is rich in the mineral calcium perovskite. By lucky coincidence, uranium and thorium like to occupy the location of calcium in the crystal lattice, pushing out the calcium.
"All the uranium and thorium will end up almost exclusively in the calcium perovskite," says de Meijer. "We know approximately how much calcium perovskite there is, and this produces a concentration of 12 ppm uranium and thorium. And that is only the average over the entire layer, a gigantic concentration."
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!