Earth's Lost Rings: A 466-Million-Year-Old Warning

Guest:
Dr. Andy Tomkins – Geologist, Professor at Monash University, and lead author of the groundbreaking study proposing that Earth once had a Saturn-like ring system.

The Cosmic Scoop:
What if Earth once had rings like Saturn? Dr. Andy Tomkins joins Markus to unravel the evidence that, 466 million years ago, a colossal asteroid breakup may have encircled our planet with a shimmering band of debris. From the science of ancient meteorites to the climate effects of planetary rings, this episode explores how cosmic events have shaped our world—and what they might mean for life, extinction, and the future of planetary science.

Quotable Insights:

• “The evidence needs to be gathered a bit more still, but we think that ring period could have lasted for 20 to 40 million years.”
• “You can imagine looking up and seeing this ephemeral, light-shaded band in the sky.”
• “Life diversifies quickly when it’s responding to a challenge.”
• “Rings are ephemeral—they don’t last very long.”
• “Earth is compositionally not that special. The right ingredients for life are distributed everywhere throughout the universe.”

Cosmic Timeline:

[00:00:00] Introduction & Earth’s Ancient Beauty
[00:02:00] Saturn-like Rings on Earth?
[00:06:00] The Visian Period: 500 Million Years Ago
[00:09:00] How the Ancient Ring System Formed
[00:14:00] The Asteroid Breakup and Meteorite Evidence
[00:18:00] Global Impact: Craters, Tsunamis, and Sedimentary Clues
[00:23:00] What Did the Rings Look Like?
[00:27:00] Did the Rings Affect Earth’s Climate?
[00:31:00] The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event
[00:36:00] Geological Timescales & Extinction Events
[00:41:00] The Fate of Earth’s Rings
[00:45:00] Habitability, Exoplanets, and Cosmic Coincidences
[00:50:00] Where Did Earth’s Water Come From?
[00:54:00] Future Asteroid Events & Apophis
[00:59:00] What’s Next in the Research?
[01:03:00] If You Could See the Asteroid Belt…
[01:06:00] Music for the Journey: “Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones
[01:09:00] Espresso for the Mind: Inspiration & Final Thoughts

Links to Explore:

• Dr. Andy Tomkins at Monash University
• Original Research Paper: Earth’s Ancient Ring System
• Plate Tectonic Reconstructions (YouTube)
• NASA Asteroid Resources
• Spotify Playlist: Space Cafe Podcast Guest Picks

Spread the Cosmic Love!
If this episode sparked your imagination or challenged your view of Earth’s history, share it with a friend, colleague, or fellow stargazer. Let’s keep exploring the mysteries of our planet and the universe together.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Andy Tomkins: so it's, it, the evidence needs to be gathered a bit more still, but we think that ring period could have lasted for 20 to 40 million years. 

[00:00:09] Markus: Hello [00:00:10] everyone, this is the Space Cafe Podcast and I'm Markus. Was Earth more attractive in the past than it is right [00:00:20] now, arguing maybe that earth is right now, way past its prime. As a beautiful planet. Well, there is a scientific paper that's [00:00:30] floating out there that argues that, so they wouldn't use those categories, beauty and whatnot.

[00:00:36] Markus: But just for the sake of making an argument, I'm, I'm [00:00:40] taking the liberty to do so. This scientific paper argues that 500 million years ago, earth was. Quite different [00:00:50] because it had a Saturn like ring system how cool can it get? Just picture this.

[00:00:58] Markus: How beautiful must that have [00:01:00] been? this, Theory, well, actually it's not a theory anymore because it's a peer reviewed paper floating out there and gaining quite a bit of attention and [00:01:10] momentum as we speak was written by, Dr. Andrew Tompkins and his team of Monash University in [00:01:20] Melbourne, Australia.

[00:01:21] Markus: And. So according to this paper, 500 million years ago, something strange happened in Earth's [00:01:30] atmosphere and caused a cataclysmic. Chain of very interesting events with even more interesting side effects. And so I was [00:01:40] like, this is Food for Space Cafe Podcast land. And before we jump into discussing all this with the papers author himself, [00:01:50] Dr.

[00:01:50] Markus: Andrew Tompkins. I would encourage you to write into us, send us your ideas and thoughts and guest suggestions if you, if you have [00:02:00] some at, uh, podcast at Space Watch Global. And now my friends. Without further ado, let's kick this right off. Welcome Dr. Andrew Tompkins to the [00:02:10] Space Cafe Podcast. Let's go. 

[00:02:13] Markus: Andy, uh, take us back into the Visian period, 500 [00:02:20] million years ago. What was earth like during those times? 

[00:02:25] Andy Tomkins: So the, a vision period, it's, it's, [00:02:30] it's quite a long period of time. If we, if we started at 500 million years ago, it probably extends down to around about 440 million years ago. start of that period, the earth was [00:02:40] fairly warm, quite a, quite a lot warmer than today. Maybe about six degrees warmer, but today, and it cooled down to actually. By the end of that period down to actually the coldest time in the [00:02:50] last five 50 million years.

[00:02:52] Markus: Hmm.

[00:02:52] Andy Tomkins: it cooled down to, uh. What is that? About five degrees colder than today's average global temperature. [00:03:00] And the, the, the period we're talking about 466 million years ago, it was around about sort of three degrees hotter than the global average temperature.

[00:03:07] Andy Tomkins: So time when, uh, [00:03:10] life was just starting to emerge from the oceans. So think animals like, like a mud skipper that. Is hopping around on the mud in the tidal environment, just starting to emerge [00:03:20] onto land and sort of looking up at the sky around it and thinking, what's around on the, on the land?

[00:03:24] Andy Tomkins: Can I, can I evolve and go walk around on the land? That's kind of what was going on back then. 

[00:03:29] Markus: So if [00:03:30] I like, picturing myself in the form of a mud skipper, what would the beach, the land look like? Uh, would it look like, I [00:03:40] dunno, a pristine, green, hilly mountainous, region may be of course, depending wherever the mud skipper. Is at, [00:03:50] but was it jungle already or was, was plant life quite different compared today to today? 

[00:03:58] Andy Tomkins: I don't know that much about the plant [00:04:00] life 'cause that's not

[00:04:00] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:04:00] Andy Tomkins: field of geology, but it was green. The plants probably would've looked 

[00:04:06] Markus: I. 

[00:04:07] Andy Tomkins: to today, but, there would be no [00:04:10] animals around there to, to the plants, that sort of thing yet. so, there hasn't been that evolution of plants to, to get into really, [00:04:20] really big trees.

[00:04:20] Andy Tomkins: I would guess you probably need to ask a, a paleontologist about that sort of question, but, but yeah. It's, it's a, it's a time when it would've been green [00:04:30] animals just starting to evolve into that sort of climate. Coming outta the oceans is probably the best way to think of it. 

[00:04:36] Markus: Hmm. The [00:04:40] continents before we go into the actual topic of today, but the continents, were they already formed? Where they already placed? Where the, where they are [00:04:50] today? 

[00:04:51] Andy Tomkins: Uh, so yeah, that's a good question. So. The continental masses were formed, continental drift was making all the continents drift, move around over the [00:05:00] earth. And with the people who work on. Reconstructing plate, tectonic, drift have generated movies over where [00:05:10] the plates were back in time. And so you can, you can Google, people at home can Google, or look on YouTube actually plate tectonic reconstructions and see movies for the last, [00:05:20] 1 billion years of where the continents were as they drifted around across the surface of the earth. the continents were there. mountains were forming. time, over hundreds of [00:05:30] millions of years, continents were moving around. So all the different continents were in quite different places back then to, to the way they are today. 

[00:05:36] Markus: And now enter the the [00:05:40] rings like Saturn, we from Saturn, we, we adore Saturn, uh, for its rings, and you're claiming that there was so. Similar [00:05:50] back in the day for Earth. So how would, how does like this now coincide with this, this period we just, uh, talked about. 

Formation of Earth's Ancient Ring System

[00:05:59] Andy Tomkins: [00:06:00] Yep. So what we think might have happened is a, is a large asteroid might have come. to the earth and [00:06:10] basically broken up as it got too close and ended up, ended up forming a debris ring around the earth. So, so that's, that's how the, the rings around Saturn would've formed. For example, an icy mood [00:06:20] would've broken up when it got too close to Saturn, and then the debris sort of gets distributed by gravity and, sort of banging into bits and pieces over time to form a ring [00:06:30] around the equator. And so when you look at, the rings around all the outer. Giant planets, all. So Jupiter, satin, Uranus, Neptune, all have [00:06:40] rings. and they all probably formed by that same sort of Process. there's even been scientific papers suggesting that Mars might have had rings in the past too. So [00:06:50] FBOs and D Moss may well have from rings and from back and forth, from rings to moons, rings to moons a few times.

[00:06:58] Andy Tomkins: I think [00:07:00] so, 

[00:07:01] Markus: It's fascinating, so it's like rings are pretty much the consequence of matter coming too close into the [00:07:10] gravity. Field of something else. And then the gravitational forces break matter up into bits and pieces, and those bits and pieces stay [00:07:20] within the gravitational pole of the bigger mass. 

[00:07:23] Andy Tomkins: that's, right. So, something that scientists sort of call the Roche limit, which is

[00:07:29] Markus: [00:07:30] Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:30] Andy Tomkins: a distance away from the surface of the planet. The which closer than which it'll break up as a body comes too close, getting pulled apart, stretched apart by tidal forces. [00:07:40] so that's one way of forming rings.

[00:07:42] Andy Tomkins: There's actually a couple of two different ways. Another way to do it is to a, an asteroid or a moon or something like that [00:07:50] run into a planet and the debris. Getting thrown out, uh, into, into an orbit that it then forms a ring as well. So, for example, there's a couple of [00:08:00] hyper belt objects, small dwarf planets out beyond Pluto that, uh, we think have rings as well.

[00:08:07] Andy Tomkins: Not, not us, but other people have published that.

[00:08:09] Markus: [00:08:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:10] Andy Tomkins: And so that those ones are too small to have sufficient gravity to pull apart an orbiting body. So those ones would've had to have formed rings by a collision, [00:08:20] and then the debris from the collision forming a ring. And then Saturn's too big for that to happen.

[00:08:25] Andy Tomkins: And so that one needs to have happened by a Roche limit breakup type process. 

[00:08:29] Markus: [00:08:30] How much do we know about this asteroid? Do we know anything where it came from, how big it

The Scientific Discovery Process

[00:08:36] Markus: was, what it consisted of? 

[00:08:39] Andy Tomkins: Yeah. that's a good [00:08:40] question. So, so when we, uh, we were proposing this idea we used, uh, this kind of a weight, weight weights of evidence approach where we used multiple lines [00:08:50] of evidence to suggest that it might have been, might have formed. And one of those pieces of evidence was some sedimentary rocks that were deposited 466 million [00:09:00] years ago that are, are highly enriched in.

[00:09:02] Andy Tomkins: Meteorite debris. And so it's a hundred times, a hundred to a thousand times as much meteorite debris in those sedimentary rocks as is [00:09:10] normally found in the same types of sedimentary rocks anywhere else at any other time. And so when people have analyzed that meteorite debris, all of it is, is [00:09:20] Elon debris, which means it's a particular type of asteroid. So normally if we looked at sedimentary rocks at any other point in time, there'd be [00:09:30] and pieces of other types of measure. It's very, very sparsely distribute, distributed from all different types of asteroids. This particular time, it was a hundred times more at all of its Elon material. [00:09:40] that's what we think the body would've been made of.

[00:09:43] Andy Tomkins: A particular type of asteroid called the Elon Parent Body or one of the, one of the Elon parent bodies that's [00:09:50] probably broken up into multiple pieces. And so that's one of the more common meteorites we have in our global collection. Uh, uh, something called Rights, which are, which stands for low [00:10:00] metal, Stony Meteorites as type of stony meteorite. 

[00:10:04] Markus: This, is this a local event or w would you find [00:10:10] residue and dust from that asteroid impact all around the world? So I assume we're talking about, um, a layer, a thin [00:10:20] layer of asteroid residue in the ground. 

[00:10:23] Andy Tomkins: that's right. So it was initially found in Sweden. Some

[00:10:27] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:28] Andy Tomkins: uh, operating a quarry found these [00:10:30] unusual rocks encased in limestone that they were extracting. And they went and asked some scientists what these rocks were. It turned out that they were, they out they were these [00:10:40] elcon meteorites. And then they did further work and, and dissolved up limestone and extracted a, uh, lots and lots of terrestrial chromites, which came from these [00:10:50] elcon meteorites. And then they did further work at the same age, sedimentary rocks in Russia and in China, and found the same layer of, meteorite debris. [00:11:00] At the same age in, in quite different places around the world. So yeah, all over the world it would be, if you can find the right age ary rocks, you should be able to find this material. 

[00:11:09] Markus: So [00:11:10] this must have been a major event.

[00:11:12] Andy Tomkins: Yeah. And you can date it fairly precisely using the volcanic layers that are fairly close to the same sort of, uh, same sort of layers. And they've [00:11:20] dated it fairly precisely to 466 or just slightly less 466 million years ago. So. 

[00:11:28] Markus: Wow. But there [00:11:30] wasn't by the way, just out of personal curiosity this, quarry in Sweden. Um, do you know the name of that quarry? Because I [00:11:40] just got back from Sweden like two days ago, and I was in Kiruna at the, the world's largest iron ore, mine. [00:11:50] So I'm just wondering if this was the place.

[00:11:52] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, so I just had a quick look. It's, I think it's called, uh, yeah. It's, it's the [00:12:00] Quarry's in Thorberg in Sweden. And I think the name of the quarry is called O Planner 65. 

[00:12:06] Markus: Okay. So this is a different place. Okay. 

[00:12:09] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:10] Yeah. 

[00:12:13] Markus: Okay. Just to get things. Clear [00:12:20] for myself. We're not talking about an asteroid impact. We're talking about an asteroid, a breaking up of an [00:12:30] asteroid in orbit. In orbit. So how did the dust particles from that event come down to earth? 

[00:12:38] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, so, so the, [00:12:40] the idea is you had a, the earth here, an asteroid came very close, 

[00:12:43] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:12:44] Andy Tomkins: we hand around. There's lots and lots of bits of debris in space, over time that if it's close [00:12:50] enough to the earth, that'll, uh, the orbits will decay, it'll rain down onto the earth. it would accumulate in sedimentary rocks.

[00:12:56] Andy Tomkins: But it's not just the debris layer in the limestones in [00:13:00] Sweden, you know, China and Russia, it's actually some several impact craters. So 21 impact craters, uh, from the same period of time. And it, they last from exactly the same time. So [00:13:10] 466 million years ago for about, the ages on the craters aren't very precise, but, but for about, sort of 20 to 40 million years afterwards. [00:13:20] And so the idea there is you would've had this asteroid breakup, some bigger chunks would've been big enough to go down and form impact craters and all the small dust would've accumulated in the sedimentary rocks. [00:13:30] And then, then on top of that, the, the third of evidence is an unusual number of tsunami deposits. [00:13:40] In many places around the world, uh, the world as well. So you can imagine if you have impact into the ocean, impact itself can cause a tsunami, but it also sets off landslides, underwater landslides, that that [00:13:50] would also cause tsunamis. And so there's a, at the same time as all that was going on, there's three different things. The tsunamis, the impact structures, and

[00:13:58] Markus: Wow. 

[00:13:59] Andy Tomkins: meteorite debris and [00:14:00] sedimentary rocks. Yep.

[00:14:01] Markus: Wow, 

[00:14:02] Andy Tomkins: unusual period in time. 

[00:14:04] Markus: wow. when we talk about impact, we're talking about impacts of. [00:14:10] Fragments of the larger body, those fragments that would not burn up in the atmosphere and that would make it through to the surface or explode [00:14:20] above the surface 

[00:14:21] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, that's right. Most of 'em are hitting the surface. And so the, I think the biggest, those structures is, is around about 30 kilometers across, but most of 'em are quite [00:14:30] small. Most of 'em are sort of one or two or five kilometers across. So 

[00:14:34] Markus: 30 kilometers. 

[00:14:36] Andy Tomkins: yeah, it's the biggest one. So slight [00:14:40] island, the impact crater is, is 30 kilometers. East Clearwater Lake is 26 kilometers across, fairly big impact structures in the, in the [00:14:50] scale of things. But there are much bigger ones as well from other periods in time. 

[00:14:54] Markus: Fantastic.

[00:14:55] Andy Tomkins: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:56] Markus: The Chlo, what was that? What was the size of Chlo like? 

[00:14:59] Andy Tomkins: [00:15:00] is huge. That's the one that

[00:15:01] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:15:02] Andy Tomkins: Yeah.

[00:15:03] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:15:03] Andy Tomkins: is, I think, uh, people could look it up and get a more

[00:15:06] Markus: I. 

[00:15:06] Andy Tomkins: number. Last I heard it was 120 kilometers across, but [00:15:10] they it's a big one. Yeah. 

[00:15:13] Markus: Yeah, that was a big one.

[00:15:14] Andy Tomkins: Yeah.

[00:15:14] Markus: So, how much do we know about the asteroid, what it was made up of? Was it [00:15:20] an icy asteroid or, I dunno, what was it made up of? 

[00:15:24] Andy Tomkins: before I, was talking about an elcon. So what's an elcon? People can look that up if they [00:15:30] want to online quite easily. It's a, it's something called an ordinary con, meaning it's made of stony materials. So it's, it's like a silicate rock. So you look [00:15:40] at, elk con meteorites, they, if you, it was lying in the desert, and it had been there for a while, it doesn't, they don't look very much different to other rocks. [00:15:50] So if you sort of think of a rock rock, it's sort of a slightly heavier than a normal rock. And just that material sort of breaking up [00:16:00] as it came too close to the earth. it, it probably, we think there's two options. It could have been something called a rubble pile asteroid, or it could have been a solid asteroid.

[00:16:09] Andy Tomkins: And [00:16:10] so rubble pile asteroid, as the name implies, is kind of like a, a whole bunch of jumbled up boulders from many impacts or stuck together by light gravity sort of [00:16:20] thing. So that's one option. And another option is just a solid chunk of rock that could have broken up. 

[00:16:25] Markus: Okay now, so we got a bunch [00:16:30] of, particles and rocks and impact residue on the surface of the earth, but the, the main bulk of the asteroid is still [00:16:40] orbiting our Planet. forming those rings, those Saturn like rings. So how much do we know [00:16:50] or how, what, what's your best estimate about the dimension of those rings? 

[00:16:56] Andy Tomkins: Yeah. So one, one way we can have a go at that question [00:17:00] is to, to, to calculate what the Roche limit is. And so the Roche limit for a rubble pile asteroid is, uh, 15. Uh. 15,800 kilometers above the surface [00:17:10] of the earth. and so if a body breaks up at that altitude, you'll form a debris ring sort of inside that orbit. So, you we're [00:17:20] probably talking about a fairly, like a smallish asteroid, maybe slightly bigger than the one that formed the Chick Lab crater that wiped out the

[00:17:26] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:17:29] Andy Tomkins: And so the [00:17:30] amount of debris would, is probably not enough to form a really, really bright ring like Saturn's rings. It also would've been a bit more dull ' cause Satan's rings are made of ice. these ones would've been [00:17:40] made of rock, probably a, a light gray colored rock. so probably wouldn't have looked, wouldn't have looked quite as spectacular as satin, but it would've been, uh, probably fairly noticeable from [00:17:50] the ground. But it's hard to really know because it's quite hard to estimate the size of this thing too. The size of the body before it broke up. 

[00:17:57] Markus: So initially when we talked [00:18:00] about those mud, what was it? Mud jumpers. What was the type the name again of those

[00:18:04] Andy Tomkins: Yeah,

[00:18:04] Markus: mud skippers. Exactly. So what, how would a mud skipper have seen [00:18:10] that that ring in the sky? What would've, what, what would it have looked like, look like? 

[00:18:18] Andy Tomkins: I'd love to know, [00:18:20] I mean, you can imagine looking up and seeing this ephemeral sort of light. Shaded band in the sky that, I mean, you can imagine looking sight on it, a ring in the sky [00:18:30] and seeing

[00:18:30] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:18:30] Andy Tomkins: a thin, a thin plane of material. That's kind of what I have in my head. But it's, it's, it's hard to put a number on that because it's hard to estimate [00:18:40] how big it was. yeah, it'd be nice

[00:18:43] Markus: Interesting. 

[00:18:44] Andy Tomkins: it, constrain it a bit bit better, but yeah. 

[00:18:48] Markus: I guess that a, a [00:18:50] ring in the sky. Matter in the sky Also obstructs sunlight. So meaning how, how much do we know if this [00:19:00] also obstructed the sunlight in a way that the climate is affected by it?

[00:19:07] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, so that's one thing we were suggesting. If there was enough [00:19:10] debris up there, it would shade the earth a little bit. You can, you can just take it, take a look at some of the images of satin, for example, and you can see that the rings shade, the surface of satin. [00:19:20] And so if there was enough debris out there, it would block some of the sunlight uh, the winter side of the earth.

[00:19:27] Andy Tomkins: So the winter side would cool down more. [00:19:30] The reflected light off the ring might heat up the northern side a little bit more, and the winter, the summer side a bit more and maybe increase the temperature very Slightly. and [00:19:40] so it would create a more extreme temperature variation. It might cool the earth overall just a little bit. It, it just so happens that that period in time, like I was saying before, a cool [00:19:50] down from fairly warm conditions down to the

[00:19:52] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:19:52] Andy Tomkins: time in the last 550 million years. 

[00:19:54] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:19:55] Andy Tomkins: so we were being fairly speculative when we were suggesting that that might've [00:20:00] been caused by the rings. It kind of matches the, the time scale of the impact craters.

[00:20:06] Andy Tomkins: So maybe. 

[00:20:08] Markus: anything is, is, is there [00:20:10] anything we could learn from the fossil Record? I dunno if this, [00:20:20] so if, uh, this massive temperature delta could have. Affected the biosphere and so [00:20:30] yeah. 

[00:20:30] Andy Tomkins: yeah, that's a good question. So that, that period of the automation is called the great. Automation bio diversification event. What that means is [00:20:40] biosphere, that the life evolving quickly, it diversified quickly, and life diversifies quickly when it's responding to a [00:20:50] challenge. So if the temperature is changing, if it's changing gradually enough, it'll evolve and develop and adapt as, as the temperature changes and the climate changes, all that sort of stuff.

[00:20:59] Andy Tomkins: So, [00:21:00] whether that was driven by it. shading from the ring or not is another matter. We know that that was happening from the fossil record. it it, it's [00:21:10] plausible that it could have been driven by this large cooling event. And it's plausible that cooling event was caused by the shading by the ring.

[00:21:16] Andy Tomkins: So that's, that was, that was, we know that that was [00:21:20] happening, that that diversification event. Event. And then it's more of a question of, did our ring cause it or was it some other process that was going on? [00:21:30] I. 

[00:21:32] Markus: I just because when we're talking about. Time spans that date way back [00:21:40] in, prehistoric eras. We are usually lacking an understanding or imagination, I should rather say [00:21:50] imagination, to wrap our heads around those time spans. So, how long would you say was that period? How be [00:22:00] how many million years?

[00:22:01] Markus: Because I, I mean, like, I always, I like to connect. As humans as homo sapiens on this planet, [00:22:10] for 200,000 years existence on this planet, which is ridiculously short compared to those time spans. So, could you, could, could you [00:22:20] bring this a little bit into the right place? 

[00:22:24] Andy Tomkins: Yeah. That, that's, that's one of the tricky things about teaching geology actually is that massive [00:22:30] timescale difference. It's

[00:22:31] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:22:31] Andy Tomkins: your head around. So it's, it, the evidence needs to be gathered a bit more still, but we think that ring period could have [00:22:40] lasted for 20 to 40 million years. that's, based partly on, those that meteorite debris in the sedimentary [00:22:50] rocks. So the previous scientists have measured normalist amounts of meteorite debris up to 40 million years later. And there's, there's not really [00:23:00] been enough sampling and analysis of that question yet, so that's something that'll be figured out in coming years. it, it's also based on the, an, [00:23:10] the, the number of impact craters, so that, that period of time is, Has an anomalous number of impact craters. So if you look at the distribution of impact [00:23:20] craters over time, there's a spike the

[00:23:22] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:23:23] Andy Tomkins: cra cratering rate over time at that period. that spike lasts for about, uh, maybe 40 million years or so Too. 

[00:23:29] Markus: [00:23:30] C could this, could this, be, could this be related to earth passing through a cloud of meteor [00:23:40] or, or, or a cloud of rocks? 

[00:23:43] Andy Tomkins: Yeah So um before before we came up with this idea other

[00:23:47] Markus: Uh. 

[00:23:48] Andy Tomkins: recognized that there was this meteorite debris [00:23:50] on the earth and this spike impact cratering rate that had been all recognized previously And the previous idea was that there'd been a a big collisional event in the asteroid belt that sent a [00:24:00] shower of meteorite asteroid debris throughout the whole inner soil system that hit the earth and there's this big spiking debris on the earth There's a consequence of that [00:24:10] more recently scientists have realized that there isn't the same spike in on uh or impact TERs on Mars or the moon [00:24:20] so that maybe that's a bit less possible now And so the other way that this would've happened is if again if there was a collision in asteroid belt one large fragment could have been [00:24:30] knocked into earth solve and then broken up as it came around the earth So very similar sort of idea just by a slightly different mechanism

[00:24:37] Markus: Hmm

[00:24:38] Andy Tomkins: So it would've been from the asteroid [00:24:40] belt for sure

[00:24:41] Markus: mm-hmm. 

[00:24:41] Andy Tomkins: some sort of collision vent to make it drift into earth crossing of it 

[00:24:46] Markus: Let's go back to the conundrum [00:24:50] of geology and time spans and the human, the feeble human mind. Um. When you talk about [00:25:00] temperature differences of five degrees plus minus the average, these differences, this changes span [00:25:10] over 20 million years. Is that, is, is that right?

[00:25:13] Andy Tomkins: Yeah that's right It's So this is a yeah so 

[00:25:18] Markus: Sorry. [00:25:20] Sorry. This is, this, this is the only reaction I I, I can have because this is mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing.

[00:25:27] Andy Tomkins: a really good one You're you're touching on here So [00:25:30] you know I was just saying before that the the coldest period in the last five 50 million years was at the end of this period straight after that It heated right up to [00:25:40] about an average global temperature of about nine degrees Currently it's about 14 maybe 15 now with the global 

[00:25:49] Markus: [00:25:50] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:51] Andy Tomkins: It heated up to around about what is it 18 degrees

[00:25:55] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:55] Andy Tomkins: so about three degrees above now And it did that really quickly So [00:26:00] that was a massive spike in from really cold to quite warm in in a short amount of time And that was that coincided with a global extinction [00:26:10] event one of the 

[00:26:11] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:26:11] Andy Tomkins: major extinction events is that that that massive heating event so

[00:26:17] Markus: that what was the time span for this? 

[00:26:19] Andy Tomkins: mm [00:26:20] Maybe 5 million years or something like that But yet yeah Other people would

[00:26:26] Markus: But, uh, we're still, still, we're talking about [00:26:30] 5 million years.

[00:26:31] Andy Tomkins: That's why scientists are really worried about climate change right It's happening

[00:26:34] Markus: Yes.

[00:26:35] Andy Tomkins: Yeah 

[00:26:36] Markus: Because this is, in fact, this is happening in real time [00:26:40] compared to 5 million years. What we're seeing right now is real time 

[00:26:44] Andy Tomkins: Yeah exactly 

[00:26:45] Markus: and still it's too slow for us to [00:26:50] be able to understand it and compute it and get an understanding for it.

[00:26:56] Andy Tomkins: Yep

[00:26:56] Markus: this is one of the reasons we're not acting because it's too slow [00:27:00] for our minds.

[00:27:01] Andy Tomkins: Yeah that's that's what I've seen What what I think as well it's you know it doesn't feel like you know one and a half degrees in years [00:27:10] as much or 30 years as much it's actually massively rapid in terms of This geological record it's incredible Incredibly [00:27:20] fast Yeah 

[00:27:20] Markus: Mm So all in all, from from your expertise, professional, professional expertise, you would [00:27:30] see the earth as a very stable place over geological time spans. So the peak we're [00:27:40] experiencing right now we're seeing right now is. A very unusual, singular, singular event because the, all the other events [00:27:50] usually take a lot longer because Earth is a stable place. 

[00:27:53] Andy Tomkins: Yeah And so there's there's been five major extinction events in the past one of those was the big impact that wiped out [00:28:00] the dinosaurs that caused a a big changing in global temperature one I've been talking about is the automation Um uh

[00:28:07] Markus: Hmm.

[00:28:08] Andy Tomkins: Perian Extinction event [00:28:10] Big change in temperature The biggest one is the Perian Trias Extinction event which is again a big change in temperature and all Big increase Big yeah big changes in temperature Let's leave [00:28:20] it at that So 

[00:28:21] Markus: But again, but again, over very long, comparably, long time spans. 

[00:28:27] Andy Tomkins: Yeah in geological timescales [00:28:30] those extinction events are short ones but they're still longer than the one we're talking about We probably don't have that really tightly constrained on how long they occurred [00:28:40] over 

[00:28:41] Markus: Let's go back to, to that asteroid by, by the way, did that asteroid have a name or do we have a name for that asteroid.

[00:28:49] Andy Tomkins: [00:28:50] No I haven't come up with one Good question 

[00:28:53] Markus: So let's call it the asteroid. Was there anything particularly interesting? [00:29:00] In it in terms of minerals or metals or maybe even heal helium three or water or whatnot. [00:29:10] Is there anything of interest in that you could find in the fossil record? Not fossil record, in the geological record.

[00:29:18] Andy Tomkins: Yeah so Meteors are [00:29:20] enriched in elements that are that are not common on the Earth's surface So in some elements that is so things like the platinum group elements so the classic [00:29:30] one is iridium which people have recognized in the chicka impact layer around the earth that that's how they recognized that was the enrichment in [00:29:40] iridium so there's a series of elements like that Called the platinum Group Elements so platinum palladium 

[00:29:47] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:48] Andy Tomkins: osmium few other bits and pieces [00:29:50] there's uh unusual amounts of nickel and chromium and a few things like that There would've been uh helium [00:30:00] three uh enrichment slight pretty pretty subtle Things like that yeah so you can recognize it chemically So people have [00:30:10] analyzed those limestones that had the meteorite debris and they find a enrichment in some of those elements as well 

[00:30:18] Markus: Take me back to the moment [00:30:20] where you had that hunch that there is something you. May want to look into, so where was that? When, when does it, when does a [00:30:30] scientist get hit by an idea? How does that work? Where were you? 

[00:30:34] Andy Tomkins: That's a good question I like I like that sort of question So I just [00:30:40] reading some stuff What part of my job is to keep up to date with what other scientists are thinking and that sort of stuff So I was reading a I came across this paper that was talking about [00:30:50] The idea that Mars may have had a ring before from breakup of FBOs and then re reformation of FBOs demos that sort of thing And I thought okay pretty cool I wonder what earth [00:31:00] would've looked like if it had a ring in the past How would you recognize that in the GE Geological record and I sort of sort of liked that thought and sort [00:31:10] of rested with it for a few days And then I remembered that there was this meteorite debris layer in in Sweden and there was this impact spike had been recognized for [00:31:20] the same period in time So I I looked up all that data and just checked that out and then thought it would be a good idea to plot the positions of the impact craters on [00:31:30] the and where the where the where the plates were back in that point in time And so I got a friend of mine a colleague of mine to do that She plotted up all the [00:31:40] positions the impact structures and it turned out that all of them 21 craters were all fairly close to the equator And you know the ring around satin is around the equator and [00:31:50] all the rest of it So 

[00:31:50] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:52] Andy Tomkins: that's really unusual Normally when you look at the moon all the impact craters are wide all over the place And you would expect meteorites sort of asteroids raining [00:32:00] down on the earth to randomly hit the earth anyway They shouldn't be all around the equator like that Yeah And so we did a did an analysis of [00:32:10] how much of the surface area of the continents could preserve impact structures turns out that two thirds of the land mass was away from the equators one third [00:32:20] the equator Yet all the impact structures were near the equator So that's kind of

[00:32:24] Markus: Mm. 

[00:32:25] Andy Tomkins: toss tossing a three-sided coin and getting TA and getting tails every time [00:32:30] So the statistics of that happening Is really really low That's why we're

[00:32:35] Markus: Wow. 

[00:32:36] Andy Tomkins: So yeah that's one of the main

[00:32:37] Markus: Wow. 

[00:32:38] Andy Tomkins: is is that [00:32:40] one 

[00:32:41] Markus: How, how accepted is the theory today amongst your peers and, and fellow scientists and geologists? 

[00:32:49] Andy Tomkins: [00:32:50] I I presented this at the Meteor Society Conference uh just two weeks ago as an invited talk [00:33:00] and and like it They like they love the idea they love a new idea Right And and they can see the logic in it people [00:33:10] already know that there's this spike in impact craters They already know that there's this meteorite debris they can see that it's quite a plausible model It's it's scientifically plausible 

[00:33:19] Markus: [00:33:20] Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:20] Andy Tomkins: also at the same time difficult to prove beyond doubt It's it's a actually it's hard to think of ways of proving it really well and so it [00:33:30] of part of the job of scientists is to put ideas out there and then another scientist can come along and go oh I I could do this and that'll prove it sort of thing And so when I [00:33:40] was talking to one of the other scientists after I'd given my presentation he said why don't you do some paleo mag tell you what that is in a sec [00:33:50] On the impact glasses from the impact craters 

[00:33:52] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:53] Andy Tomkins: bag is is where you take a sample and look at the orientation of the magnetic field that's that was formed as that glass [00:34:00] formed And what that can tell you is where is the latitude of that particular impact Crater at the 

[00:34:07] Markus: Oh. Hmm. 

[00:34:08] Andy Tomkins: And so that's a better [00:34:10] way of checking whether they're all near the equator or or whether some of em might have been further away It's like another piece of evidence sort of thing So that's that might be some of the [00:34:20] future work we could do for example is go to these impact structures some the right sort of rocks and then do some pal mag to look at the ancient latitude that it was at when it [00:34:30] hit

[00:34:30] Markus: How deep do you have to drill to find that residue? 

[00:34:36] Andy Tomkins: It varies from crater to crater So um some of the craters are [00:34:40] buried beneath sedimentary rocks and so there are drill cores through through some of the impact structures already So you could go to those drill cores and use that material [00:34:50] you have to take oriented samples to be able to measure the orientation of the magnetic field properly other impact structures have the the right sort of rocks preserved at the surface and you [00:35:00] can just walk along and pick em up sort of thing Half the battle is getting there and taking the samples but yeah

[00:35:06] Markus: Wow. But still, [00:35:10] where did the rings go? Where are they now? 

The Fate of Saturn's Rings

[00:35:12] Andy Tomkins: yeah So um rings just dissipate over time So satins rings will [00:35:20] disappear within a in a hundred 200 million

[00:35:22] Markus: Really, 

[00:35:22] Andy Tomkins: only

[00:35:23] Markus: really? 

[00:35:23] Andy Tomkins: satin You set Satins rings are about a hundred to 400 million years old already Then they'll disappear in that sort [00:35:30] of timeframe So so rings are ephemeral right They don't don't last very long 

[00:35:35] Markus: Where will they go? Will they rain down on Saturn or where will they go? 

[00:35:39] Andy Tomkins: Yep [00:35:40] So stuff that's inside

[00:35:41] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:35:41] Andy Tomkins: limit uh will rain down onto set and stuff that's outside the Roche limit will drift away

[00:35:45] Markus: Hmm 

[00:35:46] Andy Tomkins: Uh that's right Uh yeah That's [00:35:50] similar to being right So stuff inside the inside geostationary orbit will rain down stuff further

[00:35:55] Markus: hmm. 

[00:35:55] Andy Tomkins: drift out So yeah so that eventually [00:36:00] disappears So um another way of uh thinking about that too is Moon is locally formed from a ring And what we [00:36:10] this is not me this is other people we the way we think the moon formed is there was a a Mars sized body hit the proto Earth and a bunch [00:36:20] of Material was left spinning around the what eventually became the earth And from that the the moon coalesced to

[00:36:25] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:25] Andy Tomkins: we see today So

[00:36:27] Markus: Mm. 

[00:36:27] Andy Tomkins: been a a a ring of material that the moon coalesced [00:36:30] from What's been happening there is that the moon's gradually been drifting away from the earth over time And so it eventually we'll lose the moon as well Uh [00:36:40] you know many many probably I don't know how many hundreds of millions a years billions a years in the future but it's drifting away anyway

[00:36:46] Markus: Well, so we [00:36:50] should hurry up for that research we need to do on the moon and that moon base we wanna build.

[00:36:56] Andy Tomkins: yeah Before it gets too far away Yeah 

[00:36:59] Markus: [00:37:00] Very interesting. Yeah.

[00:37:04] Andy Tomkins: slowly So on our way way way beyond our lifetime So you just talk about geological time before It's [00:37:10] a long

[00:37:11] Markus: Wow,

[00:37:12] Andy Tomkins: Yeah 

[00:37:12] Markus: wow, wow. Fantastic. Do you think, man, this is super [00:37:20] speculative, but do you think that this. Events like that can have something to do with habit habitability [00:37:30] of a planet, like for example, take an exoplanet. And we're with the technology we're developing, we're evolving, we are [00:37:40] seeing ever more exoplanets, slowly but gradually, directly. And now my question to you is something like this. Conducive [00:37:50] for habitability in whatever form. 

[00:37:54] Andy Tomkins: It it's probably a couple of fun things to think about [00:38:00] there So

[00:38:00] Markus: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:01] Andy Tomkins: um uh one fun thing to think about is This is potentially a way [00:38:10] of pen spotting life gently to a surface So if you imagine if you had a somehow had life on a [00:38:20] moon or or an icy body or something like that that was 

[00:38:23] Markus: Mm 

[00:38:23] Andy Tomkins: inside and it came close to a planet and broke up formed a ring 

[00:38:26] Markus: mm. 

[00:38:27] Andy Tomkins: rain out of debris onto the surface there a gentle way [00:38:30] of transferring life down to a surface

[00:38:33] Markus: Mm 

[00:38:34] Andy Tomkins: And and the other thing we talked about before was how a ring sort of moderates the [00:38:40] temperature of a planet It it's it changes the

[00:38:42] Markus: mm. 

[00:38:42] Andy Tomkins: of a planet So one thing I had wondered about in the past was whether you could terraform [00:38:50] Venus by putting a baseball cap on it Calling it with a ring right And then calling it down and raining out the atmosphere and [00:39:00] terraforming it that way But

[00:39:01] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:39:01] Andy Tomkins: that might be a bit difficult just because Venus doesn't really have a type have a have a bulge around the equator that makes it

[00:39:07] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:39:07] Andy Tomkins: have a ring A ring and a few other bit details [00:39:10] But 

[00:39:10] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:39:10] Andy Tomkins: you know can you could plausibly terraform planets that way 

[00:39:17] Markus: I like those discussions. I like them [00:39:20] very much. There's people who want to nuke Mars as we know to Terraform and Venus is, is a different cup of tea. [00:39:30] Very interesting. So, but that means, the unlikelihood for life to evolve. [00:39:40] Could. Get a more complicated through such events, maybe. Maybe an asteroid type event triggered [00:39:50] something, and if it hadn't been for that asteroid type event, there wouldn't be no life around.

[00:39:55] Markus: So the more I think we look into the formation of [00:40:00] life, the more we find out how unlikely it is. That life evolves. So of course, you, you already mentioned it, it's, it's not your [00:40:10] field of expertise, because as a geologist, you do not look at the living things, uh, on the planet. But how, how do you see all [00:40:20] that?

[00:40:20] Markus: Is the, the question it all boils down to, are we alone? Are we alone on this planet? 

[00:40:29] Andy Tomkins: Yeah [00:40:30] well so so personally I actually think life's the chance that there's life elsewhere in the universe is probably quite high 

[00:40:37] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:40:38] Andy Tomkins: there's there's a bunch of reasons for that [00:40:40] So one is when we look at the the meteorite debris in our solar system the meteorites There's a significant fraction of them [00:40:50] have the right sort of carbon compounds in them

[00:40:53] Markus: Hmm.

[00:40:53] Andy Tomkins: all the ingredients 

[00:40:54] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:40:55] Andy Tomkins: amino acids all that sort of stuff They have it's the [00:41:00] there that's needed to make life When you look at the element distribution in the universe there's there's the there's basically what is there it six main elements [00:41:10] Carbon hydrogen oxygen phosphorous sulfur nitrogen Are needed for life And those are the most common elements in the universe apart from [00:41:20] helium so they've got all the right ingredients distributed everywhere throughout the universe There's I don't know what 300 billion [00:41:30] stars in hour galaxy 500 billion galaxies in the universe a

[00:41:34] Markus: It is a statistical necessity. 

[00:41:36] Andy Tomkins: Yeah It's almost unavoidable You'll have something almost exactly like the [00:41:40] earth and and the the right elements are there So it's probably even carbon based life is the most likely thing cause that's what forms long chain compounds and water's really common in the in our [00:41:50] solar system elsewhere around the universe So it's the our planet is is compositionally not that special 

[00:41:58] Markus: [00:42:00] But what, what makes it special? I, I read very recently, but this is o of course, your field of expertise, the tectonic activity

[00:42:08] Andy Tomkins: Mm

[00:42:08] Markus: earth [00:42:10] is a prerequisite, some say for the evolution of life. 

[00:42:17] Markus: Tectonic activity is rare in the solar [00:42:20] system as far as I understand.

[00:42:22] Andy Tomkins: all right I mean I I wouldn't I'm not sure if it's a necessity as some people have argued that I know But like I I think it's [00:42:30] plausible that life may have started on on Mars for example the right ingredients for life it doesn't have a magnetic field that would shield that life from [00:42:40] for surviving And Earth has a magnetic 

[00:42:41] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:42:42] Andy Tomkins: That's probably more important the plate tectonics but tectonics and tectonics probably helps [00:42:50] I but personally I don't think it's a necessity

[00:42:53] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:42:54] Andy Tomkins: Yep 

Future Asteroid Events and Apophis

[00:42:56] Markus: Speaking of asteroids. By the way, there will [00:43:00] be a minor, major asteroid event in a couple of years from now. Um, a very close call. I think only like half a year, [00:43:10] ago, science announced that it is not going to be a major impact event. So it wasn't clear [00:43:20] for a long time that the apophis asteroid, um, wouldn't hit the earth because it's a very close call.

[00:43:28] Markus: So could this [00:43:30] could this be a Roche limit type event perhaps? 

[00:43:34] Andy Tomkins: Great Yeah Awesome We've already asked that question and we've had a go at calculating it So [00:43:40] one of the astrophysicists I'm collaborating with to try and calculate some of these ideas to model these ideas uh is Dan Price also at Monash Uni with me [00:43:50] and he's had a go at modeling what would happen to Apophis on its predicted orbit And his initial model suggests that it'll break up if it's a rubble pile asteroid [00:44:00] But uh I think they're pretty early stage models and we don't know It's not gonna come within that that ratio limit I talked about before It's gonna be a bit but [00:44:10] it's gonna be I think within Geocentric orbit 

[00:44:13] Markus: So very close. Very close in lay terms, but not close enough for breakup. [00:44:20] I think it's just a couple of hundred meters in Dia in diameter, which would be massive if it impacted, but still it's a small [00:44:30] type, uh, asteroid. 

[00:44:31] Andy Tomkins: it's gonna miss this. And so if it broke up, it would end up with, you know, sort of a debris cloud moving further off and disappear off over the horizon, so to speak. [00:44:40] But so, so one way to think about that too is, we've, uh, NASA's visited, uh, Benu recently an asteroid, one of these carbonation [00:44:50] asteroids. And the interesting thing about the shape of Benu and, uh, one of the other ones was they have this sort of diamond shape and that that shape. Is kind of the [00:45:00] shape you get when you have a, an asteroid or a rubble pile, asteroid that's loosely held together, spinning. when you, if a rock falls off the surface, you lose some [00:45:10] of the angular momentum so that, that shape is something that develops. That Develops. so it's at the. of stability sort of thing. It's just about to fly [00:45:20] apart and, and when things fall off, that slows it down enough to not fall apart anymore. So it's, when you have a body like that, that's on the verge of falling apart, you just have a, have to have [00:45:30] a tiniest little bit of tal stretching it, it'll fall Apart. so if apophysis like that, it could be quite interesting to see what happens to it. 

[00:45:39] Markus: [00:45:40] There's, there's a fun, thing about the actual day. A pul is will pass by the earth. Did you know that what day it is? [00:45:50] No. It's a Friday the 13th. It's no joke.

[00:45:54] Andy Tomkins: Classic. 

[00:45:56] Markus: April, Friday, 13 20 29. That's, uh, that's kind [00:46:00] of interesting as,

[00:46:01] Andy Tomkins: Nice.

[00:46:01] Markus: as if written by a script author. 

[00:46:05] Andy Tomkins: Cool. 

[00:46:07] Markus: Yeah.

[00:46:09] Markus: I, Yeah. [00:46:10] no, go ahead.

[00:46:11] Andy Tomkins: fun, one of the other fun things to think about here is we were just talking about a fus. So, and I said, if a Fus breaks up, it'll just fly past and disappear. One of the [00:46:20] other interesting things to think about there is, okay, but so wouldn't that happen to this asteroid we've been talking about to form the ring around the earth?

[00:46:26] Andy Tomkins: And so, thing I wondered about [00:46:30] is, is whether a captured mini moon would be the best thing here. So. Many moons have been, something we picked up. There was one in the news just last year that it was captured [00:46:40] by the earth temporarily, then disappeared off again. the idea there is that an asteroid comes along, gets captured by the Earth's orbit and goes around the earth several times and then [00:46:50] disappears. And so in that scenario, you have a, one of these many moons drifts in close enough. Then breaks apart. That's the sort of thing that would allow all that debris to form a [00:47:00] ring around the earth a bit more effectively than a passing body like Apophis.

[00:47:04] Markus: Hmm.

[00:47:04] Andy Tomkins: so that's, that's another thing to think about in,

[00:47:06] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:47:06] Andy Tomkins: in all this, 

Origin of Earth's Water

[00:47:09] Markus: [00:47:10] I am taking advantage of your expertise way beyond what we're talking about right now. We the water on earth, this is a huge [00:47:20] mystery where it came from. Is there anything that you may know that I do not know where the water came from? [00:47:30] Unearth. 

[00:47:30] Andy Tomkins: Yeah. Okay. So. Earth basically accreted from debris in the solar system. So some of that debris that's still accreting [00:47:40] to the earth is, is, uh, comet particles. So meteor showers are mostly comet raining down onto the earth. and there's obviously meteorites, accreting to the earth all [00:47:50] the time too. When we look at the composition of the meteorites, the carbonaceous cones have lots of minerals like. Serpentine and [00:48:00] smite in them that have water in their crystal structure. And so we're talking about several percent water in some of these meteorites. some of that, some of that [00:48:10] naturally created earth was made of these debris. so the earth would've been just built from some of that stuff naturally. So all, all the planets [00:48:20] had had volatile elements. Uh, you know, all the gases and sulfur and carbon dioxide, that sort of stuff. it's a question of how much was lost from impacts [00:48:30] and that sort of thing. So, I think probably impacts have quite a strong control on the inventory of, uh, those elements. so it's kind of a [00:48:40] combination of what was a creating and then what was being blasted off at the same time sort of thing. 

[00:48:44] Markus: Still, we're talking about two thirds of the Earth's surface, [00:48:50] being underwater, 12 kilometers, deep, uh, at some, at some places. So there must be a huge, a huge bombardment of those, those [00:49:00] things. So this is, again, it's like the 20 million time span, that, that we talked about that just does not fit my, [00:49:10] my neurological equipment. 

[00:49:13] Andy Tomkins: One of the fun things about that way of thinking is, yes, the ocean's really deep and all that sort of stuff, but the earth as the, [00:49:20] as the, the average composition of the whole earth is actually really, really, really dry compared to typical meteorite. [00:49:30] So, so the, the amount of water in the earth is not like 1%.

[00:49:34] Andy Tomkins: It's much, much, much less than that. Whereas a

[00:49:37] Markus: interesting. Mm-hmm.

[00:49:38] Andy Tomkins: of them have several percent [00:49:40] water. 

[00:49:40] Markus: Mm mm. 

[00:49:42] Andy Tomkins: So yes, we have to, we, the earth has still

[00:49:45] Markus: Mm. 

[00:49:46] Andy Tomkins: from,

[00:49:46] Markus:

Future Research Directions

[00:49:46] Markus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:49:50] Is so your paper is published, peer reviewed. Is there anything still you are trying, like major topics you're trying to [00:50:00] find out about that discussion that we're having?

[00:50:03] Andy Tomkins: There's a lot to do still. So, 

[00:50:05] Markus: Mm-hmm. 

[00:50:06] Andy Tomkins: the paper was presenting that, that waste of evidence, you know, several [00:50:10] bits of geological evidence that suggest this thing might have happened. what, physicists, astrophysicists needs to do now is model what's [00:50:20] possible. Like, does it have

[00:50:21] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:50:21] Andy Tomkins: captured mini moon? You know, can you numerically model the evolution of a ring and how would [00:50:30] that evolve over time? How long could it last? So people have had a go at doing that for satins rings, for example.

[00:50:35] Markus: Hmm.

[00:50:36] Andy Tomkins: you have a go at modeling the climate evolution? How, how, [00:50:40] how, how opaque does the ring need to be to, to affect the climate, that sort of thing. We need to get a better idea of, of how long the ring might have [00:50:50] persisted. You can do that by looking at the sedimentary rocks that have Demetri debris and seeing how long that unusual accumulation lasted for.

[00:50:57] Markus: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:58] Andy Tomkins: You can, you can date the impact [00:51:00] structures better. You can do that. Paleo mag analysis I was talking about before, to see the latitude a bit more effectively. So there's lots, it's kind of like put this idea out there and [00:51:10] now there's heaps of work that needs to be done to, to have a go at proving

[00:51:14] Markus: What's the like, what, what, what's the likelihood that something like this happens again [00:51:20] in our lifetimes as a species?

[00:51:22] Andy Tomkins: Uh, good Question. 

[00:51:25] Markus: Uh, the, uh, I think the biggest problem is the species. How long, so what is the [00:51:30] lifetime into the future considering the political environment currently on Earth? 

[00:51:34] Andy Tomkins: Yeah, well, you know, Donald Trump's anyway, probably [00:51:40] another way to think about it is, is it likely to happen in the next sort of 5 billion years before the sun

[00:51:45] Markus: Hmm. consumes the earth type of

[00:51:46] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:51:47] Andy Tomkins: So one way to answer that is to, [00:51:50] to look at the rings around the other planets. And so I was saying before that Saturn's rings are. Sort of not very long, not very old, and won't last much longer. The other [00:52:00] rings around the other plants are also. Ephemeral. The rings around those copper belt objects are really Brief. so those, those of ring forming [00:52:10] events are happening multiple times across the solar system's history. that's something I had no idea about before I started getting into this subject. And so it's kind of [00:52:20] cool to think of the solar system sort of occasionally forming rings and they'll disappear and then they'll come back again in

[00:52:25] Markus: Mm.

[00:52:25] Andy Tomkins: a few a hundred million years. It's, it's plausible that it'll happen again around the earth. It [00:52:30] just takes the right sort of of the right sort of orbit for that to happen again.

[00:52:36] Andy Tomkins: So it's, 

[00:52:37] Markus: So it's like, like a pulsating [00:52:40] event. If you speed it up very rapidly over the eons, you would see planets having their, um, [00:52:50] rings and then losing them and getting them again, and losing them. So there's always something going on. 

[00:52:55] Andy Tomkins: So the solar system probably looked quite different like a

[00:52:58] Markus: Mm mm [00:53:00]

[00:53:01] Andy Tomkins: the planets would've been there, but they might have had

[00:53:03] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:53:03] Andy Tomkins: and

[00:53:04] Markus: Yeah, 

[00:53:04] Andy Tomkins: have had had its rings. Yeah. So. 

[00:53:07] Markus: yeah. Would you, [00:53:10] if someone offered it to you, would you want to see those asteroids, the asteroid belt with your own eyes with traveling there? 

[00:53:19] Andy Tomkins: [00:53:20] Yeah. What'd be really cool, uh, I often think about this as a geologist. It'd be, it'd be amazing to have, a time lapse that lasted for like a billion years or something [00:53:30] crazy like 

[00:53:30] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:53:31] Andy Tomkins: But I often think it would be interesting to live for a, a billion years and see it all. Imagine that that'd be cra kind of crazy

[00:53:37] Markus: Huh.

[00:53:38] Andy Tomkins: and just, and that [00:53:40] what, that's what I'd really like to see is the whole evolving thing.

[00:53:43] Markus: Wow.

[00:53:44] Andy Tomkins: see

[00:53:44] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:53:45] Andy Tomkins: continents moving, all sorts of

[00:53:47] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:53:48] Andy Tomkins: be amazing.

[00:53:48] Markus: Yeah, [00:53:50] there's a question I'm asking each of my guests at the end of, of the show, and that is if the call came and someone offered you. [00:54:00] A ride to the stars, a ride in your case to the asteroid belt or wherever. It's usually an exciting, but very rapidly turning into [00:54:10] a boring, journey because the distances are vast and you can get bored pretty easily.

Closing Thoughts and Music Selection

[00:54:16] Markus: So my question to you is, what one piece [00:54:20] of music would you want to bring on that journey? To entertain yourself and you get to choose one tune, and that tune will [00:54:30] be added to a Spotify playlist for the aspiring space Travelers.

[00:54:33] Andy Tomkins: Oh wow. One piece of music,

[00:54:39] Markus: Yeah. [00:54:40] That shouldn't drive you crazy. One, one song. Yeah.

[00:54:44] Andy Tomkins: again for, for years.

[00:54:46] Markus: Now you can hit stop. You can hit stop and pause, but [00:54:50] what would entertain you? 

[00:54:51] Andy Tomkins: All right. I don't know, a, a song I've liked for a long time that just comes to mind is [00:55:00] paint It Black by Rolling Stones, which would be kind of a weird one to be playing over and over again for many years.

[00:55:07] Markus: You, you should take a look. You should take a [00:55:10] look at the playlist that is being populated by other guests and so there is kind of very strange types of music on it. And so it's, it's [00:55:20] a motley bunch of human tastes. so you are fitting perfectly with your choice.

[00:55:29] Andy Tomkins: [00:55:30] That's

[00:55:31] Markus: And, and one more question. This show is called the Space Cafe Podcast, a coffee place where we can hang out and have interesting or [00:55:40] not so interesting conversations.

[00:55:41] Markus: And now, and then you go into coffee places to have a strong shot of, um, coffee to energize yourself when [00:55:50] you're tired. Now I challenge you to share. And espresso for the mind with me or the audience. Some shot of inspiration you may want to [00:56:00] share and whatever kind of topic you want to pick. What could be inspiring?

[00:56:04] Andy Tomkins: Okay. I was actually just thinking about a fun one the other day. You know [00:56:10] how, you know how that they've just found that comet coming through the solar system that's from outside the solar system.

[00:56:17] Markus: Hmm. No, 

[00:56:18] Andy Tomkins: What

[00:56:18] Markus: I. 

[00:56:18] Andy Tomkins: happen if a comet [00:56:20] like that or an asteroid like that hit the earth moving it 90 kilometers a second, which is, you know, uh, four, four and a half times faster than a normal [00:56:30] asteroid? would

[00:56:31] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:56:31] Andy Tomkins: in the, in the geological record? What would that

[00:56:35] Markus: Huh. 

[00:56:36] Andy Tomkins: planet? What would a, what would a much faster one do to a planet? [00:56:40] There's some mind blowing stuff to you. It could do all sorts of stuff. How would you recognize it? 

[00:56:47] Markus: This is, this is truly [00:56:50] inspiring and this will keep my mind and my brain engaged and active for a while now. Thank you. Thank you, Andy [00:57:00] Tompkins for, taking the time and sharing your research and your wisdom and your expertise with us. Thank you so much.

[00:57:07] Andy Tomkins: No worries. It was fun to have a chat. It was [00:57:10] nice, you know, fun to talk about this sort of stuff.

[00:57:13] Markus: And that is a wrap my friends. Uh, that was another episode of the Space Cafe Podcast. Thank you so much for [00:57:20] taking the time, for sharing your wisdom and your fantastic research with us here in the show, Dr. Andrew Tompkins. And your team. [00:57:30] This is brilliant. This sheds such a beautiful light on our planet and this is what the Space Cafe Podcast is all about, at least to me.

[00:57:39] Markus: [00:57:40] Thank you, my friends, for sticking around, still on this show, still listening to this. Thank you so much. And if you feel like this is worth sharing with [00:57:50] someone that could, or some, this is something that could strike up an interesting conversation with someone, why don't you share the show, the link to the show with someone you like, [00:58:00] you respect, you appreciate, and.

[00:58:04] Markus: I know I'm repeating myself, but the algorithms only understand ratings and [00:58:10] reviews, so please do so it take those 10 to 15 seconds and rate our show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That would mean a lot to us and would [00:58:20] help us grow the show to where everyone wants it to be at. Well, and that's about it for this week.

[00:58:29] Markus: I [00:58:30] catch you in two weeks from now. Take care. Bye-bye. [00:58:40]