Our
Solar System is a pretty calm place these days, all things considered, but that
wasn’t always the case. In the period when the planets were still forming,
collisions between various large bodies were common, and they ultimately helped
shape the system that we see today. New research shows that Uranus, a chilly,
hostile planet with a number of peculiar features, was the victim of a
devastating impact during those early years, and it might explain some of the
planet’s strange personality.
Uranus
moves much differently than the other planets in our Solar System, spinning on
its side in comparison to the rest of the worlds in our neighborhood.
Astronomers have often wondered just how this happened, but simulations
performed by scientists at Durham University’s Institute for Computational
Cosmology might have finally produced the answer.
“We ran more than 50 different impact scenarios
using a high-powered super computer to see if we could recreate the conditions
that shaped the planet’s evolution,” lead author Jacob Kegerreis explains. “Our
findings confirm that the most likely outcome was that the young Uranus was
involved in a cataclysmic collision with an object twice the mass of Earth, if
not larger, knocking it on to its side and setting in process the events that
helped create the planet we see today.”
Something
absolutely huge slammed into Uranus when it was still young, causing it to tilt
dramatically and spin on its side. The impact would have to have been a
glancing blow, rather than a head-on collision, but the contact was sufficient
to change the direction the planet’s axis is pointing.
bruh moment
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