Evidence suggests Earth had a ring system 466 million years ago, causing a surge in meteorite impacts and possibly influencing the planet's climate.

Scientists have proposed a fascinating new idea: Earth may have once possessed a ring system, akin to that of Saturn. These rings could have formed around 466 million years ago, during a tumultuous era marked by intense meteorite bombardment known as the Ordovician impact spike.

Earth and Saturn might be a lot more similar than previously thought. In a new study, a team of researchers suggests that 466 million years ago, a ring system made up of asteroid remnants may have surrounded our planet,

A weird number of craters are located close to the equator, and the odds that this is random are incredibly low, researchers say.

"Over millions of years, material from this ring gradually fell to Earth, creating the spike in meteorite impacts," said researcher Andy Tomkins.

Earth may have had rings. At least that's what a new study published this month claims. Here's what we know so far.

If astronomers had been walking the Earth 466 million years ago, they may have had something special to see. The moon and the planets and the stars and the sun would have looked pretty much the same as they do today.

During a tumultuous period for our planet around 466 million years ago, Earth was pelted with meteorites and rocked by tsunamis. But geologists have uncovered some strange things about this moment in history.

Led by Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, the study was published Tuesday in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters . The scientists behind the study believe the rings may have been created by intense meteoric bombardment of Earth,