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Imagine a pinball machine on multi-ball mode—only the balls are the size of planets. The early solar system was such a rough-and-tumble place.
That chaotic environment produced the occasional literally Earth-shattering collision. The moon, for instance, is believed to have formed from debris stirred up by a Mars-size object careening into our young planet.
Now, new research indicates that Pluto may have suffered a similar fate. According to planetary scientist Robin Canup, all three of Pluto’s satellites could trace back to a single impact.
An impact has long been suspected for the birth of Charon, the largest Plutonian moon, but Canup ran impact simulations to show that Nix and Hydra, two much smaller satellites discovered in 2005, may be debris from the same collision. Her study appears in The Astronomical Journal. ["On a Giant Impact Origin of Charon, Nix and Hydra"]
A simulated low-speed crash between comparably sized planetoids yields a Pluto and a Charon, plus an icy debris disk that could coalesce into a Nix and a Hydra. That means that the small satellites should still be pretty icy—a prediction that may be tested as soon as 2015, when NASA’s New Horizons probe reaches the area. If the probe finds that Nix and Hydra are mostly ice, it'll show Canup’s simulation to be a smashing success.
—John Matson
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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5 Comments
Add CommentA lunar outpost by being an element of the vision for the National Space Exploration would be just a stepping stone to Mars and beyond. The world needs to get behind these ideas and beef up support for science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan't you just imagine man on Pluto? I can't wait. No, wait...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to Zecharia Sitchin, in the Akkadian mythological record of the "Enuma Elish", 3,000 years BCE, long before modern scientific observations had detected Pluto, the Sumerians were already aware of all the planets including Pluto. Furthermore, according to their version of the "Genesis" story, a planetoid which they named Marduk on a highly elliptical retrograde orbit collided with our young planet (named "Tiamat"). The result was our Earth, the Moon, and the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is curious, also, that the Mayans seem to have been aware of celestial bodies supposedly beyond the ken of astronomical facilities of those days.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFascinating stuff. Currently I'm searching thru Native American lore to find evidence that they knew about the Kuiper belt objects as well. I'm sure if I look hard enough I'll also find references to super massive black holes being the driving force of quasars. If I wanted to I'm sure I could also find that the ancient Sumerians knew all about quantum physics, if I intrepret their ancient texts "correctly".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@WilliamStoertz
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis sort of wishful interpretation is a load of crap. People will see what they want to see.