Monday, October 10, 2011

Scientists Believe that Uranus Took Two Massive Impacts


There is little debate that Uranus is a strange place. It is the only planet in the solar system to be 90º off axis and quite literally rolls around the sun. This odd sideways polar position for Uranus may have been caused from not one but two giant impacts. This comes from simulations that were run by two astronomers at the Observatory of Côte d'Azur in Nice, France. To get such a huge tilt, Uranus would have to have been smashed into by another planet the size of Uranus which would have totally disrupted Uranus' system of moons. Since that is not the case, the two astronomers suggest that Uranus could have been hit by two Earth sized planets several billion years ago. Scientists also suspect that Neptune may have been impacted very much like Uranus, leading many astronomers to reconsider their models of how the outer Solar System formed.........

Check out the Dvice article here

2 comments:

Jay said...

Tee hee!

Beam Me Up said...

Am I wrong? It was Uranus that took two massive hits wasn't it?

Sorry...I just get into this mood and then there is always an article to support it....