'Theia' is a long-vanished world, a planet-sized body thought to have smashed into the early Earth and that helped to form the moon. A new study has now analysed ancient lunar and terrestrial rocks to ...

Among the inner solar system, Earth is the only planet that experiences plate tectonics. A new study, using convection models, shows that Earth’s collision with the protoplanet Theia some 4.5 billion ...

The catastrophic collision that forged the moon, and marked one of the most consequential events in Earth's early history, may have been triggered not by a distant interloper, but by a sibling world ...

Roughly four and a half billion years ago the planet Theia slammed into Earth, destroying Theia, melting large fractions of Earth’s mantle and ejecting a huge debris disk that later formed the moon.

How did Earth, alone among the solar system's rocky planets, become the home for life? How, among all this frigid lifelessness, did our planet become warm, hospitable, and life-sustaining? The answer ...

About 4.5 billion years ago, a colossal impact between the young Earth and a mysterious planetary body called Theia changed everything—reshaping Earth, forming the Moon, and scattering clues across ...

The Space Space Nov 25, 2025 / 09:53 AM CST Scientists believe the moon was formed from the debris of a collision between Earth and the planet Theia, which was likely located closer to the sun than ...

An artist's impression of the collision between the early Earth and Theia, which may have formed the moon MPS / Mark A. Garlick Around 4.5 billion years ago, a planet called Theia is thought to have ...

About 4.5 billion years ago, the most momentous event in the history of our planet occurred: a huge celestial body called Theia collided with the young Earth. How the collision unfolded and what ...

Roughly four and a half billion years ago the planet Theia slammed into Earth, destroying Theia, melting large fractions of Earth’s mantle and ejecting a huge debris disk that later formed the moon.