Knowing How The Process Of Forming The Earth And Its Stages Scientifically

YOGYAKARTA - Who would have thought that the earth we are based on has a long history of billions of years. Can be as habitable as it is today, how is the process of forming the earth?

Modern sciences reveal stage by stage the formation of the Earth, from cosmic dust in the young solar system to becoming a planet that supports life as it is today.

Reporting from the University of Chicago page, the history of the earth began about 4.6 billion years ago which started with clouds of dust and a disk-shaped gas rotating around the young sun.

Dust clouds form from material remnants after the Sun is born and inside the disk, particles of gas and dust of different size orbit at unequal speeds, so that they often collide with each other and stick. dust grains slowly grow into chunks, then become massive celestial bodies called planetesimals with sizes ranging from a few to hundreds of kilometers.

Due to its larger size, planetesimals have strong enough gravity to pull nearby similar objects. Collision after collision makes several planetesimals grow up to thousands of kilometers, or the size of the Moon or Mars.

So, how do scientists know all this?

The key lies in meteorites. These celestial objects carry materials from all over the solar system, including asteroid and planetesimal pieces left over from the planet formation process.

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In addition, radioactive elements such as uranium trapped in minerals help scientists calculate its age. From these collisional measurements and simulations, it was revealed that the process from dust to protoplanets took tens of millions of years.

You should know, the final stages of planet formation can even take up to 100 million years, this is one of the major events forming the Moon.

Well, after the Moon-forming collision process, the Earth at that time was completely different from the one we know today. There is no blue ocean and its surface is covered by a magma ocean hundreds of kilometers deep. Water only exists in the form of vapor in the atmosphere.

The young sun at that time was also much more extreme because it emitted UV radiation that could evaporate the atmosphere. Only after magma oceans cool and solid surfaces form, Earth's atmosphere is replenished by volcanic eruptions as well as supplies of water and gas from comets and meteorites.

Until here, this process is referred to as the onset of the formation of tectonic plates or giant crustal layers moving slowly on the Earth's surface.

Tectonic plates produce new rocks in volcanic areas and return old rocks to Earth's interior through a subduction process. This process transports back rock, water, and carbon dioxide to then trigger future volcanic eruptions and keeps tectonic cycles running.

Many scientists believe plate tectonics are key to planets creating life. The reason is, this cycle regulates the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so that Earth's temperature remains stable for billions of years and is comfortable for microbes, fish, and humans.

However, the question of whether a planet has tectonic plates or not is not only a matter of having a solid surface. The mixture of materials from asteroids, planetesimals, and protoplanets that make up the Earth also determines the behavior of the planet's interior in a very long period of time.

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