Earth is much younger than previously thought

The Telegraph ^ | July 11, 2010 | Richard Gray

[Abin Sur]

Researchers have calculated that the planet could have taken far longer to form following the birth of the solar system 4.567 billion years ago than scientists have previously believed.

By comparing chemical isotopes from the Earth's mantle with those from meteorites, geologists at the University of Cambridge claim the planet reached its current size around 4.467 billion years ago.

Scientists have in the past estimated that the Earth's development, a process known as accretion where gas, dust and other material clumped together to form the planet, happened over just 30 million years.

But the new research suggests this process may have taken up to 100 million years – more than three times longer than previous estimates.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, however, the researchers claim that while the Earth probably grew to 60% of its current size relatively quickly, the process may well have then slowed, taking about 100 million years in all.

[norraad]

"Why, you don't look a day over 100 million years."

[wendy1946]

Bob Bass, one of America’s best mathematicians over the last century, once redid Lord Kelvin’s heat equations for the Earth WITH a maximal upper bound figure for radioactive elements and any effects which any such could cause, and he got a figure of about 200M years.

[Brilliant]

Does anyone really think these guys can figure out the age of the Earth (or the solar system) to the next 100 million years?

[Abin Sur]

Does anyone really think these guys can figure out the age of the Earth (or the solar system) to the next 100 million years?

That would be an accuracy of 1 part in 45. Why not?

[BenLurkin]

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/wacky.wav

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“4.467 billion years ago”

Yeah, +/- 5 billion. Reminds me of how Darwin said the Wealden deposits were “306,662,400 years old”.

[James C. Bennett]

100 million years in a span of 4.6 billion years, is about two percent.

[ml/nj]

Scientists have in the past estimated that the Earth's development, a process known as accretion where gas, dust and other material clumped together to form the planet

Has anyone ever observed such clumping together? And what's this "dust" stuff? And "other material" too!? I thought it was all just a bunch of hydrogen (gas) to begin with. Why would hydrogen clump? What happened to PV=nRt?

ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

“The whole issue hinges on working out how long it took for the core of the Earth to form, which is one of the big unknowns in this area of science,” said Dr John Rudge, one of the authors at the University of Cambridge.

It's nice to see someone at least address this idea of accretion. Most of what I've seen never seems to address a 6000 mile diameter earth and what might have been going on whenever it was 6000 miles in diameter.

As for biggies (among the unknowns) I guess I'd like to know how all that iron worked its way to the core.

ML/NJ

[Abin Sur]

Has anyone ever observed such clumping together?

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/newworlds/0112_missing_link.html

Hubble Survey Finds Missing Link in Planet Formation

Dark Ages in Protoplanetary Disks: Hubble Space Telescope (HST) white-light coronagraphic images of circumstellar disks around 4 young stars are shown in false color. All of these disks had previously been resolved with radio telescopes (millimeter wavelengths), demonstrating the presence of large disks. Despite similarities in the radio data, in the optical, as seen by HST's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, some of the disks are bright (DL Tau), while others are at least a factor of 100 darker (MWC 480), and other disks are dark near the star, while having faint, outer rings of brighter material (HD 163296 and DM Tau). Dark disks are believed to be flatter and denser than bright disks. To put these disks into context, the small ovals show the size of the classical Kuiper Belt (a swarm of icy planetismals orbiting our Sun at about 50 times the Earth-Sun distance) at the distance of each of these stars.

[Brilliant]

It is if you assume they are right.

[Gaffer]

So what does this really mean? Are the Eco-Nuts now going to charge all of us resource-wasters with Statutory rape of the planet instead of just regular old rape?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Whether or not they can estimate the age of the earth to one part in forty-five, they can probably make pretty good estimates age of the earth relative to asteroids, based on certain assumptions. It’s probably impossible to absolutely validate those assumptions. The best you can hope for is consistency with other measurements. A scientific theory is probably valid if it makes predictions which can be verified and its conclusions, models and predictions are self-consistent.

Classical physics needed to be tweaked when observations of the speed of light were inconsistent with Maxwell’s equations and assumptions about absolute time and inertial reference frames.

[donhunt]

This all comes from the same fools that can’t get the weather correct for the day after tomorrow never mind one hundred years from now.
Everybody is looking for a grant.

[samtheman]

Hey, dumbass reporter... 4.476 billion years old is NOT “much younger” than 4.576 billion years old.

That’s a difference of about 2%.

It’s like saying, “I’m not 60 years old. I’m MUCH YOUNGER than that. I’m only 58 years, 8 months old.

When you read a headline about the earth being MUCH YOUNGER than previously thought, you think, huh-oh, creation science time.

[Abin Sur]

Hey, dumbass reporter... 4.476 billion years old is NOT “much younger” than 4.576 billion years old.

Well, what do you expect from the lamestream press?

When you read a headline about the earth being MUCH YOUNGER than previously thought, you think, huh-oh, creation science time.

That's what caught my eye initially. I was relieved to note that the story wasn't about something as absurd as creation "science".

[gusopol3]

Because last week we were told that they may have missed the size of the proton,of which direct observation is possible, by 4 %. That’s 1 part in 25 for you pure rationalists.

[ml/nj]

I have no idea what these are supposed to be pictures of. Maybe you can point me to a paper I can read, but the pictures themselves are worse than meaningless.

ML/NJ

[earglasses]

Neal Adams believes the Earth is STILL growing. His animation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfBSc6e7QQ makes an interesting case for his theory.