The study authors hypothesize that a large asteroid, estimated to be about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in diameter, instead reached Earth’s Roche limit, which might have been about 9,800 miles ...

The study authors hypothesize that a large asteroid, estimated to be about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in diameter, instead reached Earth’s Roche limit, which might have been about 9,800 miles ...

The researchers' idea that Earth once had rings comes from reconstructions of Earth's plate tectonics from the Ordovician period—which ran between 485.4 million years and 443.8 million years ago ...

Researchers have found evidence suggesting that the Earth may have once had a system of Saturn-like rings.The rings are theorized to have formed 466 million years ago during one of the coldest ...

Such an object would have had to cross Earth’s Roche limit, the critical distance where tidal forces overcome the asteroid’s structural integrity, causing it to break apart.

The hypothesized ring may have formed roughly 466 million years ago and was the remains of a gigantic asteroid tugged apart by Earth's tidal forces after passing our planet's Roche limit.. Casting ...

The exact distance depends on the characteristics of the two bodies. For a solid asteroid approaching Earth, the Roche limit may be just over 3000 kilometres, while an asteroid made up of loosely ...

The study authors hypothesize that a large asteroid, estimated to be about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in diameter, instead reached Earth’s Roche limit, which might have been about 9,800 miles ...

The study authors hypothesize that a large asteroid, estimated to be about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in diameter, instead reached Earth’s Roche limit, which might have been about 9,800 miles ...

The study authors hypothesize that a large asteroid, estimated to be about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in diameter, instead reached Earth’s Roche limit, which might have been about 9,800 miles ...

The finding suggests that a large, space-weathered asteroid that likely strayed within Earth’s Roche limit broke up near the planet, the study authors wrote. A few million years following the period ...