The Earth would have been flat when it first formed, new study suggests

 

A new study suggests that the Earth was not always a sphere and could have been flat long ago, much like a smartie.

A team of scientists, whose study was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, claims that our planet could well have been "flat" at some point in its formation. Information that flat Earth enthusiasts are likely to find extraordinary although we know today that the Earth is indeed a "sphere" (slightly flattened at the poles).

Researchers from the University of Central Lancashire explain in a press release that the phenomenon would be inherent to the formation of planets : “the newly formed planets could take a flatter shape before becoming rounder”.

From the sphere to smarties

Until now, the theory on the formation of planets was that of central accretion : a core was formed on the basis of a protoplanetary disk, rings of dust and gas which revolve around the star(s) of the future solar system . The dust particles stick to each other and eventually form a small irregular sphere that gets bigger and bigger.

However, the new study challenges this theory. Research shows that "protoplanets, which are very young, recently formed planets around stars, are flattened structures called oblate spheroids." According to this model, called "disk instability," planet formation could occur much more quickly as the disk cools. It would then collapse into pieces which then become flattened planets.

Observational confirmation could end the debate

"We have been studying planet formation for a long time, but never before had we thought to check the shape of the planets as they formed in the simulations. We had always assumed that they were spherical," explains Dr Dimitris Stamatellos, reader in astrophysics at UCLan and co-investigator.

We were very surprised that they were flattened spheroids, quite similar to smarties!

But so far no observation has been able to confirm one or the other theory. "Observational confirmation of the flattened shape of young planets could answer the crucial question about how planets form, pointing to the currently less favored disk instability model rather than the standard theory of planet formation by accretion of the nucleus", concludes the study.