The global community is quite enthusiastic about alien planets. Various countries, especially the US, have repeatedly claimed that aliens often visit the Earth in spaceships! According to them, some Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), usually seen in the night sky, are spaceships of the aliens. Even the US plans to introduce a special law regarding the aliens! In such a scenario, Geoscientist Qian Yuan of the California Institute of Technology has come out with a sensational theory according to which an alien planet is there in the mantle of the Earth!

As per Yuan’s theory that was published in a 2021 edition of scientific journal Nature, two blobs of that alien planet might lurk deep inside the Earth! Precisely, one has to reach the centre of the Earth to find them. The geoscientist also revealed the mystery of the creation of the Moon in that article, stressing that the alien planet had collided with the Earth billions of years ago to produce the only natural satellite of Planet Earth! Yuan further claimed that he had sufficient evidence in this regard.

The geoscientist explained that the alien protoplanet, called Theia, had collided with the Earth about 4.5 billion years ago and the impact of the incident fundamentally changed our world which was slightly smaller in size at that time. He mentioned that the collision had thrown enough material from both planets into space, producing the Moon. Yuan added that the metal cores of Earth and Theia merged into one. Meanwhile, a new study has claimed that pieces of Theia may have survived till date as rocky mantles of the alien planet mixed together.

Interestingly, a section of astronomers has rejected the theory of Yuan, expressing doubt over the existence of the planet, named Theia! However, geologists have counter-argued that astronomers are wrong! The article published in Nature clearly mentioned that geophysicists made a startling discovery while conducting research on earthquakes in the 1980s. They found two continent-sized blobs of unusual material deep near the centre of the Earth… one beneath the African continent and the other beneath the Pacific Ocean. Researchers revealed that the rocks on the surface of the blobs had nothing in common with that of the Earth! A couple of important questions arise here: How could these blobs reach the core of the Earth and why are the size, as well as nature, of the rocks found on their surface quite different?

The US scientists made an attempt to resolve the mystery of those two blobs! Some of them claimed that the two blobs were basically the remains of Theia, and the collision between the Earth and Theia not only produced the Moon, but also contributed to the birth of life on Planet Earth! The researchers also created two planets the size of Theia and the Earth in computer graphics, and tried to understand what would have happened in case of collision between the two planets. It may be noted that computer programming was put on par with the solar system to steer the research in the right direction! Yuan stated that the speed of Theia was 10km per second at the time of collision with the Earth, and some parts of the hypothesised ancient planet had broken off and gone deep into the Earth as an impact of the collision!

Geoscientists have also shown how the core or mantle of the Earth contains the remains of Theia through video graphics. They claimed that the remains of the alien planet were spread over several kilometres! The researchers explained that the surface of the Earth is made up of several tectonic plates and an earthquake occurs whenever one plate collides with the other. In some places, magma comes out from the underground because of the impact of collision between two plates. It is commonly known as the eruption of volcanoes.

Researchers found that the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean are home to a large number of active volcanoes, including Mauna Loa and Kilauea; although those islands are not located at the intersection of two plates! Geologists prepared a map of all living volcanoes on the Earth in order to resolve this mystery. They realised that there was something deep beneath the surface in the Pacific Ocean and Africa, causing the eruption of lava. They came to the conclusion that those mysterious objects must be in the mantle of the Earth, triggering frequent eruptions! Most importantly, the mysterious objects remain static even during the movement of tectonic plates (in both directions)! It is, hence, there is no change in volcanic hotspots on the surface.

The US scientists also tried to reach the mantle with the help of earthquakes! As waves are created when the surface shakes during an earthquake, they helped the scientists to come closer to the two blobs lying near the mantle. Later, they prepared a map of the Earth’s interior based on seismic waves. Usually, waves (created during an earthquake) travel from one end of the Earth to the other. However, the researchers noticed that the waves which tried to pass through the bottom of Africa and the Pacific Ocean were bumped and bounced back again and again! It helped them to realise that there were two blobs of the size of a continent in those two places of the mantle. Scientists claimed that those were parts of Theia.

Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Stirling in Scotland have acknowledged the importance of Yuan’s Giant Impact Hypothesis Theory. Christian Schroeder, an expert in both Earth Science and Planetary Exploration at the Scottish University, said that the theory “fits several strands of evidence“. He told the AFP: “It is a very significant and exciting finding.” However, Schroeder admitted that the mystery of formation of the Moon was yet to be solved!

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das