Theia
Sign in to saveplanet that is hypothesized to have impacted Earth and created the Moon
AI overview
Theia is a hypothetical planet that scientists believe collided with Earth billions of years ago in a giant impact that created our Moon. This theory helps explain the Moon's size, composition, and orbit, making it important for understanding how our solar system formed.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
Theia (/ˈθiːə/ THEE-uh) is a hypothesized ancient planet in the early Solar System which, according to the giant-impact hypothesis, collided with the proto-Earth around 4.50 billion years ago, with some of the resulting ejected debris re-coalescing to form the Moon. Collision simulations support the idea that the two large low-shear-velocity provinces in the Earth's lower mantle may be remnants of Theia. Theia is hypothesized to have been about the size of Mars and likely formed at the L4 or L5 Lagrange points of the Earth's orbit, although some hypotheses debatably suggested it may have formed in the Outer Solar System and later migrated into the Earth's orbit, and might have provided much of Earth's water.
Name