Posted on 06/16/2007 9:45:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The crash may also someday create the biggest and brightest comet of all time. Astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology found the five fragments while studying the Kuiper belt, located in the solar system's outermost reaches. The fragments resemble 2003 EL61, the Kuiper belt's mysterious third largest object, suggesting all six bodies were formed in a single violent crash, Brown said... Measuring about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) across, 2003 EL61 had puzzled scientists ever since its discovery, because it's oblong and spins end-over-end so fast that it completes a full revolution every four hours... 2003 EL61 is also unusually dense, suggesting it is the former core of a larger planet that got clobbered sometime in its history, Brown added. The glancing blow made 2003 EL61 spin, knocked off its icy outer mantle, and created two moons that are almost pure chunks of ice, Brown theorizes. Now, however, Brown says he has found more remnants of the crash. He and his team were studying the surface composition of Kuiper belt objects when they realized that five of them stood out, he said by email.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
An artist's conception shows 2003 EL61, the third largest object in the far-flung region of the solar system known as the Kuiper belt, and two tiny moons. Astronomers say 2003 EL61 is the remnant of a violent collision that resembled the one that created Earth's moon. [Image by NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)]
Dwarf Santa yields giant insight into Kuiper Belt
AFP on Yahoo | 3/14/07 | AFP
Posted on 03/14/2007 11:41:56 PM EDT by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1801085/posts
...and...
When the Days Were Shorter
Alaska Science Forum (Article #742) ^ | November 11, 1985 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 10/04/2004 10:31:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1234919/posts
In the shadow of the Moon
New Scientist ^ | 30 January 1999 | editors
Posted on 08/31/2004 8:42:25 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1203912/posts
A Celestial Collision
Alaska Science Forum | February 10, 1983 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 09/15/2004 9:04:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1216757/posts
It Came from Outer Space?
American Scientist ^ | November-December 2004 | David Schneider
Posted on 11/25/2004 5:13:07 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1288537/posts
Giordano Bruno, the June 1975 Meteoroid Storm,
Encke, and Other Taurid Complex Objects
Icarus (Volume 104, Issue 2 , pp 280-290) | August 1993 | Jack B. Hartung
Posted on 12/27/2004 2:37:46 PM PST by SunkenCiv
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1309198/posts
Revising Earth’s Early History
Carnegie Institution | 2005-12-30 | NA
Posted on 01/01/2006 12:37:38 AM EST by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1550074/posts
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The discovery of 2003 UB313 Eris, the 10th planet largest known dwarf planet
Mike Brown
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/index.html
Giant Kuiper Belt planetoid Sedna may have formed far beyond Pluto
Physics Org (http://www.physorg.com/) | January 24, 2005 | Southwest Research Institute
Posted on 10/22/2005 4:05:39 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1507383/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1242941/posts?page=29#29
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1507383/posts?page=17#17
Distant Sedna Raises Possibility of Another Earth-Sized Planet in Our Solar System
Space.com | 3/16/04 | Robert Roy Britt
Posted on 03/18/2004 5:00:00 PM EST by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1100694/posts
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