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| 2009-08-12 - Weird News Windsor Genova - AHN News Writer Spitzer Telescope Sees Rare Planet Collision 100 Light-Years Away | ||
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Pasadena, CA -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected a rare collision of two small planets orbiting a young star 100 light-years away, astronomers announced Monday. The telescope managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California caught the collision of the Moon-sized rock and Mercury-sized planet a few thousand years ago in the far southern constellation Pavo, or the Peacock, where the 12-million-year-old star HD 172555 is located. The collision occurring at high speed or 22,400 miles per hour obliterated the smaller planet and dented the other one. Debris caused by the impact, such as melted glass and tektites, were the signs detected by the Spitzer spectrograph. Silicon monoxide gas, which is created when rocks vaporize, and a mass of dust were also detected. Such chemicals indicated a collision, according to Carey M. Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland and author of the findings published in the Astrophysical Journal.
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