Planetary collision: An artist's rendering depicts planets colliding in a Sun-like binary star system about 300 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Aries.From Cosmos Magazine:
LOS ANGELES: Two planets about 300 light-years from Earth slammed into each other recently, marking the first time evidence of such a catastrophic collision has been seen by scientists.
Astronomers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) said the crash involved two planets orbiting a star in the Aries constellation.
Massive and catastrophic
The collision was uncovered while astronomers were attempting to measure the star's age, and found an unusually large amount of dust orbiting the star.
"It's as if Earth and Venus collided with each other," said Benjamin Zuckerman, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. "Astronomers have never seen anything like this before. Apparently, major catastrophic collisions can take place in a fully mature planetary system."
The astronomers' research will be published in December in the Astrophysical Journal. The collision was an "ultimate extinction event" that would have wiped out any life on either planet in minutes, the report says.
The prospect of Earth suffering an apocalyptic collision with another planet or asteroid has been fodder for science-fiction writers and film-makers ever since Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's 1933 novel When Worlds Collide.
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