Though a few flat Earthers have shamelessly attempted to convince us otherwise, we all pretty much know what Earth really looks like. Despite some pretty undesirable occupants (Donald Trump, whoever wrote The Cobbler) and some less-than-pleasant residential options, Earth is definitely a nice place to crash for 80 years or so.
But what if I told you, without even hitting the proverbial blunt once, that Earth is actually two planets fused into one megaplanet? That's the latest word on the science streets, as a NASA-funded team of researchers has now discovered that our dear little planet actually absorbed a portion of Theia. The "rogue planet," according to the Huffington Post, didn't just (as originally believed) brush against Earth but instead crashed right into it like some kind of jerk.
"We don't see any difference between the Earth’s and the moon’s oxygen isotopes," Edward Young, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles and lead author of the study, tells the Post. "They’re indistinguishable." According to Young, the UCLA-gathered data reveals that Theia was "thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon" upon impact and "evenly dispersed" between the two. Volcanic rocks from Hawaii and Arizona were closely analyzed by Young's team, with their respective chemical signatures revealing the compositional overlap of the moon and our planet.
So whenever the crippling weight of humankind's inevitable descent into certain extinction starts to get you down, just consider this: Earth is actually just two well-blended planets in one. We're all still slowly sliding into an extended period of nonexistence, but remember: Earth. Two planets. Pretty cool.
