Sunday, July 29, 2012

Moon Creating Impactor May Still Be Around?!

Huh? Are they serious?! The planet that ripped Earth a new one so bad that the leftover orbits us every 29 days or so, may still be hiding out to finish the job?! That's what I said when I read this in a Dvice article. It would seem that:

  • the rogue planet was not actually destroyed in the impact, and we don't know where it went.

This according to new models. But the odds of this happening are very very low and truth be told that the best time for this to have happened would have been 4.5 billion years ago. Now the truly astute among us are saying, hey wait, that was when it hit us the first time and you would be right! The odds have steadily dropped since that first cataclysmic impact.

The worrisome part of all this speculation is that, studying the competition of the Earth and the Moon seems to indicate that very little of impactor's mass was exchanged and it may have continued on it's orbit with little loss of mass.

Well, like this article suggest though is that it is a "bit" on the fringe, and a fair piece from the standard model. Lots more evidence will have to come to light before it looses it's "crackpot" status....but still...something does not add up and remember it's what you DON'T know that will git ya!

The graphic shows A new model showing a Mars-sized planet impacting Earth to form the Moon and then escaping.

4 comments:

kallamis said...

Yeah, that not knowing part is always a problem it seems. Sneaks up you from behind, and pow.
In theory, that thing could still be orbiting in our system. (not likely, but possible.) Or it could be cruising across the galaxy right now.
When I read this, the first thing I thought of was the old Planet X theory. Flew in, kicked our planets butt, and then stayed on the far outer reaches of our system.
Wouldn't that be a B.... To actually find the thing still in our system.

Beam Me Up said...

Oh and the speculation! Think of it... hanging out in the ort cloud and one of those ultra rare alignment of at least the gas giants which aligns with (bum bum buuuuuuuuuum) planet X pulling it into an elliptical orbit that in a 1000 years crosses Earth orbit. Oh my the sky is falling Chicken Little!

kallamis said...

Yeah think about it. In one of my nastier frames of mind one day I got to thinking about something like this.
Orson Welles and war of the worlds. Now just think if this lets just go with planet X now was discovered. And say it was discovered right close to a certain date.
Now, just for giggles here, lets throw in an unexpected and unseen meteor shower. Now we've added flaming streaks into the sky that no one was told was coming.
One group goes instantly to ground.
Others go into panic and hit the streets.
And the rest of us realize the great astrological find, and enjoy a meteor shower. All the while with one thought.
What a lousy but hilarious way for the universe to operate.
You know, there is seriously twisted bent to my nature I believe at times.
Homo-sapiens. Got to love them, if you aren't too busy running in terror from them.

kallamis said...

A rewrite on a sentence above. Brain was 10 words ahead of fingers again. It should read as follows.

Now just think if this (lets just go with planet X now), was discovered.

That makes a bit more sense now.