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Two Planets Collide in Deep Space
Foxnews ^ | 8/10/2009 | Staff

Posted on 08/10/2009 6:39:12 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA

Two distant planets orbiting a young star apparently smashed into each other at high speeds thousands of years ago in cosmic pileup of cataclysmic proportions, astronomers announced Monday.

Telltale plumes of vaporized rock and lava leftover from the collision revealed its existence to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which picked up signatures from the impact in recent observations.

The two-planet pileup occurred within the last few thousand years or so - a relatively recent cosmic timeframe. The smaller of the two bodies - a planet about the size of Earth's moon, according to computer models - was apparently destroyed by the crash. The other was most likely a Mercury-sized-planet and survived, albeit severely dented.

"This collision had to be huge and incredibly high-speed for rock to have been vaporized and melted," said Carey Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Aug. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Researchers believe the planets were moving at about 22,400 mph (10 kilometers per second) before the crash. The violent wreck released amorphous silica rock, or melted glass, and hardened chunks of lava called tektites. Spitzer also spotted large clouds of orbiting silicon monoxide gas created when the rock was vaporized.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: astronomy; catastrophism; immanuelvelikovsky; science; spitzer; spitzertelescope; velikovsky; worldsincollision
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To: a fool in paradise

Great books. Great movie.

How ‘bout this one:

You might want to check the date on the link!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,761815,00.html

THE HOPKINS MANUSCRIPT — R. C. Sherriff—Macmillan ($2.50).

While gathering brushwood for a fire to keep off the packs of wild dogs that roam the former site of London, an archeologist of the Royal Society of Abyssinia found an ancient, 20th-century thermos bottle. In the bottle was the Hopkins Manuscript. Since the damp climate of the British Isles rotted all books and papers, practically the only other records of the white man’s glory known to the vigorous civilizations of the East were a rusty iron tablet (when deciphered, it read: Keep Off the Grass) and an oblong stone (it was believed to read: Peckham 3 miles).

In the small, smug thoughts and words of Edgar Hopkins (poultry breeder and amateur astronomer), Ex-Insurance Clerk Robert Cedric Sherriff (Journey’s End, St. Helena) gives an insect’s-eye view of what happened when the moon got out of whack in 1945, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, all but wiped out Europe by tornado, earthquake and flood. The moon’s havoc was less than the human havoc which followed. England, now changed from an island to a landlocked meadow on the fringe of Europe, demanded a “British Corridor” to the sea at Gibraltar, but the Corridor blocked Europe’s nations from the oil and metals discovered on the fallen moon. In the wars that resulted, the Asiatic peoples revolted and completed the moon’s work.

Off to the comparative safety of London with its 700 inhabitants moved Survivor Hopkins to chronicle his sad saga by the light of a piece of string pushed through a strip of bacon. At night he wrote, by day he hunted for food in the barren city. His sole neighbor, an old lady, lived in the National Gallery. “She heard that it was empty, and wanted to gratify her love of art and lust for possession during the last days that remain to her.” She lived on pigeons that fell dead from the Nelson Column, cooking them over a fire of Dutch masterpieces, which she disiked.

Told in Edgar Hopkins’ subdued commuter’s style, this demi-Wellsian Downfall of the West packs a clammy warning.

parsy, for whom this was one of the first sci fi books he ever read.


21 posted on 08/10/2009 7:19:05 PM PDT by parsifal ("Where am I? How did I end up in this hospital room? What is my name?" Anonymous)
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To: jmcenanly

That looks like something I pass when I’m not regular.


22 posted on 08/10/2009 7:30:42 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Hmmmm. I thought I heard something go “bump” outside...


23 posted on 08/10/2009 7:34:43 PM PDT by FortWorthPatriot
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To: Red in Blue PA
It appears there were a few typos in the story. It wasn't two planets, it was two plants and it wasn’t in deep space but deep spruce and ...well, you can see what happened.

A tree fell in the forest.

24 posted on 08/10/2009 7:40:59 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering Kaboom!

25 posted on 08/10/2009 7:45:38 PM PDT by PrinterEagle
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To: ETL

Someday humans might be living in that solar system.


26 posted on 08/10/2009 7:46:29 PM PDT by GeronL (http://unitedcitizen.blogspot -Guilty of deviationism- http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: parsifal
“She heard that it was empty, and wanted to gratify her love of art and lust for possession during the last days that remain to her.” She lived on pigeons that fell dead from the Nelson Column, cooking them over a fire of Dutch masterpieces, which she disiked

LOL

27 posted on 08/10/2009 7:48:48 PM PDT by GeronL (http://unitedcitizen.blogspot -Guilty of deviationism- http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: freedumb2003

28 posted on 08/10/2009 7:49:56 PM PDT by RckyRaCoCo (I hear the words of Jefferson louder and louder as each day passes)
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To: Red in Blue PA
"This collision had to be huge and incredibly high-speed for rock to have been vaporized and melted,"

Now that's what I call "global warming"... none of that one degree stuff they envirokooks have everyone afraid of...

29 posted on 08/10/2009 8:07:49 PM PDT by Mannaggia l'America
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To: Red in Blue PA

Only a few thousand years ago? That must be the shallow end of deep space. Relatively speaking (npi), isn’t that like in the back yard?


30 posted on 08/10/2009 8:19:46 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Why Does Obama Want Health Care in 4 Weeks When it Took Him 6 Months to Pick a Dog?)
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To: Red in Blue PA

My reaction is a Bart Simpson-voiced “Cool!”


31 posted on 08/10/2009 8:27:25 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed (Typical "Rightwing Extremist")
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To: Red in Blue PA
Link to Planet Smash-Up Sends Vaporized Rock, Hot Lava Flying from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
32 posted on 08/10/2009 8:31:44 PM PDT by Yosemitest (It's simple, fight or die.)
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To: NonValueAdded

>Only a few thousand years ago?
>That must be the shallow end of deep space.
>Relatively speaking (npi),
>isn’t that like in the back yard?

The planets and their star are only about a hundred light-years away, not a few thousand. A ‘few thousand’ is the AGE of the event (in years).

“Infrared detectors on Spitzer found the traces of rocky rubble and re-frozen lava around a young star, called HD 172555, still in the early stages of planet formation. The system is about 100 light-years from Earth. One light-year is the distance light travels in a year (about six trillion miles).

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,538815,00.html?test=latestnews


33 posted on 08/10/2009 11:27:14 PM PDT by ETL (ALL the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: NonValueAdded

“The two-planet pileup occurred within the last few thousand years or so...”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,538815,00.html?test=latestnews


34 posted on 08/10/2009 11:28:02 PM PDT by ETL (ALL the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Hope it wasn’t too close to Deep Space Nine....that could cause some damage to the space station..


35 posted on 08/11/2009 1:23:49 AM PDT by goat granny
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To: ETL
Yes, that is understood. The point is 100 light years is relatively close in distance and a few thousand years is relatively close in time. Most of the time we hear measures about space discoveries in terms of millions or <sagan> billions </sagan> of years, whether light or standard.
36 posted on 08/11/2009 8:36:08 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (Why Does Obama Want Health Care in 4 Weeks When it Took Him 6 Months to Pick a Dog?)
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To: NonValueAdded

The wording was a little tricky and I thought you might have thought that, since we were just now receiving the images of the thousands-of-years-old collision (via light speed) that the event must have taken place a few thousand years ago.


37 posted on 08/11/2009 8:57:19 AM PDT by ETL (ALL the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: NonValueAdded

RE: The wording was a little tricky and I thought you might have thought that, since we were just now receiving the images of the thousands-of-years-old collision (via light speed) that the event must have taken place a few thousand years ago.

Correction: that the event was a few thousand light-years away. Sorry.


38 posted on 08/11/2009 8:58:57 AM PDT by ETL (ALL the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: GeronL
What star system?
HD 172555 is a young star in the southern constellation Pavo,

39 posted on 08/11/2009 6:41:52 PM PDT by jmcenanly
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To: 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; BBell; ...

Note: this topic is from August 10, 2009.
 
Catastrophism
 
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·
 

40 posted on 09/22/2009 6:05:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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