MELBOURNE - Famously known for its extensive ring system, Saturn is one of four planets in our solar system that have the distinctive feature. And now, scientists hypothesize that Earth may have sported its own ring some 466 million years ago. During the Ordovician Period, a time of significant changes for Earth’s life-forms, plate tectonics and climate, the planet experienced a peak in meteorite strikes. They should be randomly distributed,” said lead author Andrew Tomkins, a geologist and professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Scientists previously believed that a large asteroid broke apart within the solar system, creating the meteorites that hit Earth during the Ordovician Period.
