Submission + - Spitzer telescope finds traces of planet collision (bbc.co.uk)
SpuriousLogic writes: A Nasa space telescope has found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets orbiting a young star.
Astronomers say the cosmic smash-up is similar to the one that formed our Moon some four billion years ago, when a Mars-sized object crashed into Earth.
In this case, two rocky bodies are thought to have slammed into one another in the last few thousand years.
Details are to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The collision involved one object that was at least as big as our Moon and another that was at least as big as Mercury.
The impact destroyed the smaller body, vaporising huge amounts of rock and flinging plumes of hot lava into space.
Infrared detectors on Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope were able to pick up the signatures of the vaporised rock, along with fragments of hardened lava, known as tektites.
