NEW EVIDENCE: Earth Had Rings (and Might Regain Them)

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Planet Earth is the jewel of the solar system—the shimmery blue oceans, the verdant green forests, the wispy whimsical cloud formations. Saturn is the only competitor for most gorgeous planet with that giant ring system. Hmm… what if we could put the jewel of the Earth in its own ring? Then no contest. Well, there’s an extremely good chance that Earth once DID have a ring system. At least, that’s the proposal by a recent study that has evidence that a mysterious burst in meteor activity nearly half a billion years ago was actually caused by that ancient ring system collapsing onto the Earth. And, you know, if we had a ring once maybe we can have one again.

Check Out Joe Scott’s: What Would Happen If The Earth Had Rings?

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd

Written by Richard Dyer & Matt O'Dowd

Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini & Stephanie Faria

Directed by Andrew Kornhaber

Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour

Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez

Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing

Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.

This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.

© 2024 PBS. All rights reserved.

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