| Manu | Date: Wednesday, 04-July-2018, 1:16 PM | Message # 1 |
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| Object twice size of Earth hit Uranus and caused it to tilt
A study using simulations at Durham University says the glancing collision involved a proto-planet twice the size of Earth.
The planet Uranus was given its tilt after being hit in a "cataclysmic collision" by a massive object roughly twice the size of Earth, new research has suggested.
A study by researchers at Durham University believe that a collision in the planet's history left it rotating on a tilt - potentially explaining its freezing temperatures.
Uranus is unique among the solar system's planets for rotating on an axis set almost 90 degrees off of the sun's orbital plane, meaning its poles experience 42 years of continuous sunlight and darkness over the course of its orbit.
Running high-resolution computer simulations of different collisions with the ice giant, the team attempted to establish how the planet evolved.
Their work, published in The Astrophysical Journal, confirms a previous study which stated that its tilted position was most likley caused by a collision with a massive proto-planet made of rock and ice.
The collision is believed to have taken place during the formation of the solar system about four billion years ago.
Read more/full article/source - https://news.sky.com/story....1424628
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