The collision of planets created a strange world. Collision of the earth with a comet Why did such an assumption arise?
People are afraid of space. Most of these fears are caused by multiple films about the collision of a planet with an asteroid, which has global consequences and threatens the extinction of our civilization. Also, constant forecasts by scientists about approaching asteroids and meteorites force the faint of heart to dig underground bunkers. Today we will look at known cases of such collisions and the possibility of such collisions in the future.
New hypotheses about the origin of the Moon
Swiss scientists recently stunned the media with a statement that the Moon was created due to a collision between the Earth and a large rogue planet.
The planetary collision they say happened more than four billion years ago. An object the size of Mars crashed into the Earth, and “fluff and feathers” flew from the earth in different directions. Several fragments united, creating a new celestial body - the Earth's eternal satellite, the Moon.
Andreas Roifez, a scientist at the University of Switzerland, described the situation as follows: the collision of the planets occurred at high speed, and more than five hundred thousand pieces “fell off” into space from both. But only ten thousand of them became the Moon, and the rest, due to the great force of the impact, flew away to a great distance from orbit, so we do not see them.
Why did this assumption arise?
The fact is that scientists have long puzzled over Recent studies of samples from great depths of the satellite have shown that the rock is similar to the composition of the Earth. Hence the hypothesis arose that only a collision of the Earth with a planet could create a new cosmic body due to broken pieces.
Space "monster"
In 2004, scientists began to devote a lot of time to studying the complex name “Planet 2M1207”. Previously it was assumed that it was in close proximity to another - smaller in size 2M1207b. It was believed that the second, like the Moon, was simply a satellite of an older planet, but recent clear images showed that this is one planet.
That is, there were originally two of them, but they managed to grow together and now live together. This “Sweet Couple” was created by a very recent collision of planets, which occurred literally the day before yesterday by cosmic standards, but by ours - earthly ones - several tens of thousands of years have flown by since that significant day.
Their “union” can be seen with a telescope in the constellation Centavir. The appearance of such a “monster” became a whole event for astronomers, so they are still studying the details of the “accident on the space road.”
Thus, a collision of planets is a possible tragedy. It once happened on Earth, fortunately not yet inhabited. If this happens again, then not a single insect will remain here: the oceans will overflow their boundaries, and maybe even evaporate completely due to the high temperature of the Earth’s surface caused by the impact.
Is 2017 the last year for our civilization?
The Americans have taken up their task again. There was a dispute between these scientists: will our planet die in October 2017 or will the catastrophe pass us by again?
Presumably on October 12 of this year, asteroid TC4 will migrate in close proximity to the Earth. They say that his size exceeds the Statue of Liberty itself, so if he decides to “look at us for a little light,” then there will be a lot of this little light. The consequences threaten several thousand people, which will exceed the scale of the tragedy in Chelyabinsk in 2013, when more than 1,200 people were injured as a result of the fall of a foreign body on the territory of the metropolis.
But that's not so bad. Another scientist confirms that TC4 will pass by, but we will have to meet the giant Nibiru, or, as it is also called, Planet X. The collision of two planets, that is, Earth and Nibiru, should also take place in October, only the date of arrival of the space guest has not yet been announced known.
The scientist only said that on October 5 it will completely block the Sun from earthlings, flying in the constellation Virgo. He says that the consequences of the collision will be terrible, so it’s time to dig bunkers and stock up on food and water. This is necessary in order to survive!
The Earth is under attack in 2029
In April 2029, the Earth will again become the target of an asteroid. This time Apophysis-99942 will approach us; its dimensions are expected to range from 400 to 600 meters in diameter. Not much, but also a lot for a catastrophe to happen.
Its path will lie at a distance of 30 to 40 thousand kilometers from the Earth, so something will happen: in the best outcome, near-Earth space stations will be damaged, and in the worst case, a collision with the planet.
The orbit of the approaching body passes between us and the Moon, and this, as Sergei Smirnov, senior researcher, says, is very bad. The whole point is that the situation will resemble a piece of wood floating between two moving ships. And in which direction this sliver will be thrown by the waves is not clear.
It is also not possible to break an asteroid in space, since its exact dimensions and composition of the rock are not known, so it is impossible to select a suitable “weapon”.
In any case, there is no need to panic ahead of time, because scientists have many times predicted the end of the world due to the collision of our planet with another, but not a single prediction has yet come true.
Collisions between the Earth and a comet are what people began to fear, having ceased to see comets as harbingers of war. Many scientists are actively working on this problem.
So what is the problem with the space threat? The solar system contains a huge number of small bodies - asteroids and comets, witnesses of the era when the formation of planets took place. From time to time they move into orbits that intersect with the orbits of the Earth and other planets. This raises the possibility of their collision with planets. Proof of the existence of such a possibility are the giant astrobleme craters that dot the surfaces of Mars, Mercury, and the Moon, as well as the unusual situation with the mass and inclination of the axis to the plane of the orbit of Uranus. The sequential formation of planets from the Sun followed each other with a subsequent increase in their masses - Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, but why now the mass of Uranus turned out to be less than that of Neptune? Naturally, when planets form their satellites, their masses decrease in different ways. In this case, the reason is not only this. Let us pay attention to the fact that Uranus rotates around its axis “lying” on the orbital plane. Now the angle between the rotation axis and the orbital plane is 8°. Why is Uranus tilted so much compared to other planets? Apparently, the reason for this was a collision with another body. In order to knock down such a massive planet that had not formed a solid shell, this body needed to have a large mass and high speed. Perhaps it was a large comet, which at perihelion received greater inertia from the Sun. At the moment, Uranus has a mass 14.6 times greater than the Earth, the radius of the planet is 25,400 km, and it makes one revolution around its axis in 10 hours. 50 min. and the speed of movement of the equator points is 4.1 km/sec. The acceleration of gravity on the surface is 9.0 m/sec2 (less than on Earth), the second escape velocity is 21.4 km/sec. Under such conditions, Uranus has a ring of a certain width. A similar ring was present during the collision with another body. After the collision of Uranus, the axis suddenly falls and the force holding the ring disappears, and countless pieces of various sizes are scattered into interplanetary space. Partially they fall on Uranus. Thus, Uranus loses some of its mass. The change in the direction of Uranus's axis may have contributed to the change in the inclination of the orbital plane of its satellites. In the future, when Uranus begins to rotate around its axis at a lower speed, the mass that is concentrated in the ring will return to it again, i.e. Uranus will attract it to itself and its mass will increase.
All planets except Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, even Saturn, whose mass is 95 times greater than the Earth, have axes inclined to the orbital plane. This suggests that they, like Uranus, collided with either asteroids or comets. If a collision of planets with their satellites occurs, i.e. the planets attract them to themselves, then in this case they fall in the region of the equators and therefore the axes of the planets do not deviate. Mercury and Venus were saved from many collisions with asteroids or comets by the proximity of the Sun, which attracted these asteroids and comets to itself. And Jupiter, having a huge mass, swallowed all the bodies hitting it and its axis did not deviate.
The works of historians, modern astronomical observations, geological data, information about the evolution of the Earth's biosphere, the results of space research on planets indicate the existence of catastrophic collisions of our planet with large cosmic bodies (asteroids, comets) in the past. Our planet has collided with large cosmic bodies more than once in its history. These collisions led to the formation of craters, some of which still exist today, and in the most severe cases, even climate change. One of the main versions of the death of dinosaurs comes down to the fact that there was a collision between the Earth and a large cosmic body, which caused a strong climate change, reminiscent of a “nuclear” winter (the fall caused heavy dusting of the atmosphere with small particles that prevented the passage of light to the earth’s surface, thereby leading to noticeable cooling).
One can imagine what such a disaster would look like. As it approached the Earth, the body would begin to increase in size. At first, an almost invisible star would change its brightness by several magnitudes in a short time, turning into one of the brightest stars in the sky. At its climax, its size in the sky would be almost equal to the Moon. Upon entering the atmosphere, a body with 1-2 escape velocity would cause a sharp compression and heating of nearby air masses. If the body had a porous structure, then it would be possible to split it into smaller parts and burn up the main mass in the Earth’s atmosphere; if not, then only the heating of the outer layers of the body would occur, a slight slowdown in speed, and after the collision the formation of a single large crater. In the second scenario, the consequences for life on the planet would be apocalyptic. Of course, a lot depends on body size. The existence of intelligent life can be put an end to by a collision even with a small body, about several hundred meters in diameter; a collision with larger bodies can practically destroy life altogether. The flight of a body in the atmosphere would be accompanied by a sound similar to the sound of a jet engine, magnified several times. A bright tail formed by superheated gases would remain behind the body, which would present an indescribable spectacle. In the first option, thousands of fireballs would be visible in the sky, and the spectacle itself would be similar to a meteor shower, only noticeably superior in strength. The consequences would not be as catastrophic as with the first option, but large fireballs, having reached the earth's crust, could cause some small-scale destruction. If a large body hit the earth's crust, a powerful shock wave would form, which, merging with the wave formed during the flight, would level a huge surface area to the ground. If it hit the ocean, a powerful tsunami wave would rise, which would wash away everything from territories located several hundred kilometers from the coastline. At the junction of tectonic plates, strong earthquakes and volcanic eruptions would occur, which would lead to new tsunamis and dust emissions. An ice age would have been established on the planet for many years, and life would have been thrown back to its initial forms. If dinosaurs did become extinct due to the collision of a cosmic body with the Earth, then it most likely had a small size and solid structure. This confirms the incomplete destruction of life, an insignificant cooling of the climate, as well as the presence of a single crater, presumably in the Gulf of Mexico area. It is possible that similar events occurred more than once. In support of this, some scientists cite as an example some formations on the surface of the Earth.
The most ancient craters are unlikely to have been preserved due to the movement of earthly rocks, but the cosmic origin of some formations has been scientifically proven. These are: Wolf Creek (location - Australia, diameter - 840 meters, shaft height - 30 meters), Chubb (location - Canada, diameter approximately 3.5 kilometers, depth - 500 meters), “Devil's Canyon” - Arizona meteorite crater (location - USA, diameter - 1200 meters, height above the earth's surface - 45 meters, depth - 180 meters), as for comets, the collision of the Earth with the comet nucleus has not been registered (there is currently a debate that a small comet could may be the Tunguska meteorite of 1908, but the fall of this body gave rise to so many hypotheses that this cannot be considered the main version and it cannot be argued that a collision with a comet did occur). Two years after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, in May 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Comet Halley. At the same time, no major changes occurred on Earth, although the most incredible assumptions were expressed, there was no shortage of prophecies and predictions. The newspapers were full of headlines like: “Will the Earth perish this year?” Experts gloomily predicted that the shining gas plume contained poisonous cyanide gases, and meteorite bombardments and other exotic phenomena in the atmosphere were expected. Some enterprising people began quietly selling tablets that supposedly had an “anti-comet” effect. The fears turned out to be empty. No harmful auroras, no violent meteor showers, or any other unusual phenomena were noted. Even in air samples taken from the upper atmosphere, not the slightest change was detected.
A striking demonstration of the reality and enormity of the scale of cosmic impacts on planets was a series of explosions in the atmosphere of Jupiter, caused by the fall of fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on it in July 1994. The comet's nucleus in July 1992, as a result of its approach to Jupiter, split into fragments, which subsequently collided with the giant planet. Due to the fact that the collisions occurred on the night side of Jupiter, terrestrial researchers could only observe flashes reflected by the planet’s satellites. The analysis showed that the diameter of the fragments is from one to several kilometers. 20 comet fragments fell on Jupiter.
Scientists believe that dinosaurs were created and killed by the collision of the Earth with a large cosmic body. The collision of the Earth with a comet or asteroid, which occurred about 200 million years ago, was accompanied by a rapid increase in the population of Jurassic dinosaurs. The consequence of the impact of a celestial body on the Earth was the disappearance of many species, the lack of competition with which opened the way for dinosaurs to adapt and increase their numbers. These are the data from the latest research conducted by scientists in 70 regions of North America. Experts examined the footprints of dinosaurs and other fossil animals, and also analyzed traces of chemical elements in rocks.
At the same time, iridium was discovered - an element rarely found on Earth, but quite common in asteroids and comets. Its presence is convincing evidence that a celestial body crashed into the Earth, experts say. “The discovery of iridium makes it possible to determine the timing of the impact of a comet or asteroid on the Earth,” says Professor Dennis Kent from the American University of Rutgers. “If we combine the results of this discovery with the data we have about the plant and animal life of that time, we can find out what happened then.”
However, the same process then struck, after 135 million years, on the lizards themselves. Many scientists believe that a powerful impact on the Earth by a certain space object in the area of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico 65 million years ago led to such a transformation of the planet’s climate that the continued existence of dinosaurs was impossible. At the same time, favorable conditions arose for the development of mammals. Asteroids and comets whose orbits intersect the Earth’s orbit and pose a threat to it are called hazardous space objects (HCOs). The probability of a collision primarily depends on the number of HSOs of one size or another type. 60 years have passed since the discovery of the first asteroid whose orbit intersects the Earth’s orbit. Currently, the number of discovered asteroids ranging in size from 10 m to 20 km that can be classified as NCOs is about three hundred and is increasing by several dozen per year. According to astronomers, the total number of NCOs with a diameter of more than 1 km, which can lead to a global catastrophe, ranges from 1200 to 2200. The number of NCOs with a diameter of over 100 m is 100,000. If we talk about the collision of the Earth with a solid comet nucleus, then one such nucleus, approaching towards the Sun at the distance of the Earth from the Sun, has a one in 400,000,000 chance of colliding with the Earth. Since an average of about five comets pass at this distance from the Sun per year, the nucleus of a comet can collide with the Earth on average once every 80,000,000 years. Collisions in the Solar System. From the observed number and orbital parameters of comets, E. Epic calculated the probability of collisions with the nuclei of comets of various sizes (see table). On average, once every 1.5 billion years, the Earth has a chance to collide with a core with a diameter of 17 km, and this can completely destroy life in an area equal to the area of North America. Over the 4.5 billion years of Earth's history, this could have happened more than once.
Although the likelihood of a collision with a NCO leading to global consequences is small, firstly, such a collision could happen next year just as it would in a million years, and secondly, the consequences would be comparable only to a global nuclear conflict. In particular, therefore, despite the low probability of a collision, the number of victims from the disaster is so high that per year it is comparable to the number of victims of plane crashes, murders, etc. What can humanity oppose to extraterrestrial danger? NCO can be influenced in two main ways:
- -change its trajectory and ensure a guaranteed passage past the Earth;
- -destroy (split) the NEO, which will ensure that some of its fragments fly past the Earth and the rest burn up in the atmosphere, without causing damage to the Earth.
Since when a NEO is destroyed, the threat of its falling to Earth is not eliminated, but only the level of impact is reduced, the method of changing the trajectory of the NEO seems more preferable. This requires intercepting an asteroid or comet at a very great distance from Earth. How can you influence OKO? It could be:
- -kinetic impact of a massive body on the surface of the NEO, a change in the reflective ability of light (for comets), which will lead to a change in trajectory under the influence of solar radiation;
- -irradiation with laser energy sources;
- - placement of engines on OKO;
- - exposure to powerful nuclear explosions and other methods. An important circumstance is the capabilities of rocket and space technology. The achieved level of missile and nuclear technologies makes it possible to formulate the appearance of a rocket and space complex, consisting of a space interceptor with a nuclear charge for delivery to a given point of the OKO, an upper stage of the space interceptor, ensuring the launch of the interceptor on a given flight path to the OKO of the launch vehicle.
Currently, nuclear explosive devices have the highest concentration of energy compared to other sources, which allows us to consider them as the most
a promising means of influencing dangerous space objects. Unfortunately, on a cosmic scale, nuclear weapons are weak even for such small bodies as asteroids and comets. The generally accepted opinion about its capabilities is greatly exaggerated. With the help of nuclear weapons, it is impossible to split the Earth or evaporate the oceans (the energy of the explosion of the entire earth's nuclear arsenal can heat the oceans by one billionth of a degree). All the planet's nuclear weapons could crush an asteroid with a diameter of only nine kilometers in an explosion at its center, if this were technically feasible.
However, we are still not powerless. The task of preventing the most real threat of a collision with a small celestial body with a diameter of one hundred meters is solvable at the current level of earthly technology. Existing projects are constantly being improved and new projects are emerging to protect the Earth from the threat of space.
For example, according to research by a scientist in the United States, a giant air bag could one day save the world from a cosmic collision with a comet: Hermann Burchard of Oklahoma State University proposes sending a spacecraft equipped with a massive air bag that can be inflated to several sizes. miles wide and used as a soft resistance to the invading solar system away from the collision course with the earth.
“It's a safe, simple and feasible idea,” says Burchard. However, he admits that there are still numerous details that need to be worked out. For example, a material for an air cushion that must be light enough to move through space and at the same time strong enough to deflect a comet from its course to Earth.
After carefully studying the material about comets, I found out that, despite their careful study, comets are still fraught with many mysteries - consider the many theories about their origin and the endless string of new discoveries!.. Some of these beautiful “tailed stars” , shining from time to time in the evening sky, can pose a real danger to our planet. But progress in this area does not stand still. Existing projects are constantly being improved and new projects are emerging for the study of comets and protecting the Earth from the threat of space. So, most likely, in the coming decades, humanity will find a way to “fend for itself” on a cosmic scale.
The latest issue of Nature published an article by Jacques Lascar, one of the leading experts on the dynamics of the planets of the Solar System, with the impressive title: Existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth (“ The existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth").
This all means that there is no chance to calculate, even on super-powerful computers, the true fate of the inner planets of the Solar System for the entire period allotted to us by the Sun (i.e. 5 billion years). So the only thing we can do is collect statistics: i.e. take many different slightly different initial conditions, run simulations of them, and then see what percentage of simulation sessions produce what type of behavior.
So chaos is generated among the inner planets. But such chaos is quite safe for the planets themselves, since the eccentricities of their orbits remain small. Each planet revolves around the Sun in its own narrow ring, and there is no danger of crossing orbits.
However, it has long been known that Mercury can disrupt this entire idyll on longer scales, on the order of billions of years. It has a specific resonance with Jupiter, as a result of which, if Mercury successfully gets “in phase” at some of its revolutions, its eccentricity can swing to large values: 0.9 or even more. An ellipse with such an eccentricity already extends beyond the orbit of Venus, and since all this happens almost in the same plane, a collision of Mercury with Venus becomes possible (or another outcome - the fall of Mercury into the Sun).
An illustration of how a high eccentricity orbit can lead to collisions. Picture from the news Planetary science: The Solar System's extended shelf life from the same Nature.
- By the way, a retreat. The effects of relativity turn out to be of great importance in calculating the percentage of trajectories that develop a large eccentricity. If these effects are neglected, then approximately half of all trajectories of Mercury over the next 5 billion years will manage to be in the state e>0.9. If we take into account the effects, then such tractors are only about 1%. Relativistic effects seem to somehow knock down the resonance with Jupiter and prevent the eccentricity from being shaken up.
It is all this that Laskar’s group has now overcome. They ran fair simulations of planetary dynamics with variable time steps: typically the step was 0.025 years, but if the distance between any pair of planets became dangerously small, the time step was further reduced to maintain numerical accuracy. Well, all the planets plus Pluto were taken into account, as well as the Moon, and the effects of general relativity were taken into account. 2501 simulations were run, which differed in only one parameter - the initial value of the semi-major axis of Mercury's orbit - by the amount k * 0.38 mm, where k = [-1200.1200]. The solution with a given value of k was denoted S k .
Now the results.
- Of all 2501 trajectories, 20 developed a large eccentricity of Mercury, e>0.9, over 5 billion years.
- Of these, 14 at the time of writing this article had not yet been counted (and will be counted for several more months), because they fell into a dangerous area and their time step was greatly reduced.
- Of the remaining six: Solution S −947 successfully reached 5 Gyr without colliding, although it survived the close approach (6500 km) between Venus and Mercury.
- In solutions S −915, S −210 and S 33, Mercury fell to the Sun more than 4 billion years later.
- The S −812 solution collided Mercury with Venus.
- And finally, the most interesting solution S −468, in which the Earth and Mars approached at the time of 3.3443 billion years by less than 800 km (i.e. 1/8 of the Earth’s radius).
What’s generally interesting here is that before this we were talking about collisions between Mercury and Venus, but now it suddenly turned out that everyone can collide with everyone. As it turns out, this is the reason. Mercury, with a large eccentricity, sometimes interacts so successfully with distant giant planets that they transfer a noticeable part of the angular momentum to it. At the same time, its eccentricity decreases, but the orbit rises higher, i.e. closer to the orbits of other planets. If after this Mercury quickly collides with Venus, then there are practically no consequences for Earth and Mars. And if he successfully avoids a collision, then destabilization of the entire inner Solar system begins, and the eccentricities of Mars, Earth and Venus also increase greatly. As a result, it becomes possible for any pair to collide.
An example of a collision trajectory between Earth and Mars. Eccentricity shown Mercury, Earth and Mars . Horizontal scale - time from 0 to 3.5 billion years. It can be seen that first the eccentricity of Mercury increases, then Mercury causes the eccentricities of other planets to increase, and at some point they collide. Picture from the original article.
And finally, about the probabilities. Gazeta.ru wrote without further ado that “with a 1% probability the Earth may collide with Venus or Mars” (well, not just Gazeta.ru, of course). This is wrong. 1% is the probability that Mercury will develop a very large eccentricity. But most of these events will be disastrous for Mercury, but not for the Earth. What is the likelihood that this will begin to destabilize the entire inner Solar system is still unknown. After all, now there is only one single trajectory from the initial set of 2501, in which destabilization potentially dangerous for the Earth actually occurs.
Therefore, the authors have not yet undertaken to provide direct estimates for the probability that the Earth will collide with someone. But probably in a couple of years, when more statistics are collected, they will present these estimates.
And of course, it’s completely wrong to write, as Compulenta wrote, for example:
And the probability of a collision between Earth and Venus is 1:2500 and can occur no earlier than in 3.5 million years.
(by the way, there is a typo - we are talking about 3.5 billion years). I repeat once again: completely unknown- and will never be known! -- how the dynamics of the inner solar system will actually develop on a scale of billions of years. It is impossible to guarantee that a collision will occur or that it will not occur in the next 3.5 billion years. Unknown! One can only evaluate the “typicality” or “atypicality” of certain trajectories.
Well, about headlines like " Earth is predicted to collide with Mars or Venus (PHOTO)" or " Mars will attack in three billion years"I'm generally silent :)
Two large planets collided with each other, forming a single cosmic body. And this happened, by stellar standards, literally yesterday – several tens of thousands of years ago. Astronomers rejoice at their luck: it seems that for the first time we can observe the consequences of such a colossal catastrophe.
So, let's get acquainted with the characters in the drama. Brown dwarf 2M1207 of spectral class M8 (it can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation Centaurus) and its small companion - planet 2M1207b. The latter has been tormenting scientists with its riddles for several years now. And now the latest research has suggested that the strange features of this object are explained by the fact that it was born as a result of a very recent collision of two planets. But first things first.
The media started talking widely about this couple in 2004. Then, for the first time in history, astronomers managed not only to detect an exoplanet, but also to obtain direct photographic portrait system, that is, the planet itself against the background of its parent star. And the fact that this light (2M1207) in this case was not a full-fledged star, but only a brown dwarf (whose mass was then estimated at 25 Jupiter masses), did not change the matter.
One of the first-hand images of the 2M1207Ab system: the exoplanet is visible in the lower left corner, next to the brown dwarf (ESO photo).
In 2005, analysis of new photographs of the sensational couple proved, that this is really a planetary system, and not the result of just a visual superposition of two distant cosmic bodies that find themselves almost on the same line of sight. Judging by the masses of the objects, however, the system could be called not planetary, but binary. One object is a brown dwarf with a mass of 25 Jupiters, and the second is 8.
However, at the end of 2005, astronomer Eric Mamajek from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics found that 2M1207 is a little closer to us than previously thought.
The distance to this object was determined to be 172 light years (instead of the previous number - 228); accordingly, the observed objects had a lower luminosity than scientists believed, and their masses had to be revised downwards. And now it is believed that 2M1207A “weighs” as much as 21 Jupiters, and 2M1207b as 5 Jupiters.
Recently, these 172 light years were confirmed by other measurement methods, but the clarity regarding the nature of this “sweet couple” did not increase. On the contrary, some oddities have become even more pronounced. The temperature, brightness, age and location of 2M1207b do not match any theory or ideas about the formation of planets around stars.
The 2M1207Ab system as imagined by an artist. The dust disk suspected by some researchers is clearly visible (ESO illustration).
“This is such a strange object that it needs a strange explanation,” says Mamazek.
The fact is that the age of the brown dwarf 2M1207A is only 8 million years. Accordingly, his planet is not much younger. And according to existing models, a giant planet of this age should have already cooled to a temperature below 1 thousand kelvins. However, the temperature measured by astronomers for 2M1207b is approximately 1600 Kelvin.
Now Eric Mamazek and Michael Meyer from the University of Arizona have put forward a hypothesis that explains this “extra” temperature.
It’s just that this cosmic body did not have time to cool down after the collision and merger of the two planets that, in fact, formed it. According to scientists’ calculations, 1600 Kelvin should have “dissipated” in space over 100 thousand years, and the temperature of this giant planet would have dropped to the value prescribed by theory. This means that the collision of planets happened quite recently by cosmic standards.
If 2M1207A and its system were much older (say, like the Sun and its planets), the chance of a coincidence between the era of rapid cooling of that strange planet and our time would be completely slim. We would observe 2M1207b already cold and puzzle over its position, size and mass.
Speaking of the latter. There are also inconsistencies here. For example, based on surface temperature and other measured parameters, astronomers calculated the brightness that this planet should have. However, in telescope eyepieces it appears 10 times dimmer than predicted by models. Why?
The collision of two young planets in the 2M1207 system, giving birth to the planet 2M1207b (illustration by David A. Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA).
In 2006, astronomers hypothesized that the brown dwarf is surrounded by a disk of dust that obscures the giant planet. And also, in order to link all the parameters of this binary system, the researchers formulated a hypothesis about simultaneous formation 2M1207A and 2M1207b by densifying cosmic cloud material. This is how multiple stars are usually formed.
Mamazek and Meyer have another explanation for the planet's low brightness phenomenon. 2M1207b is much smaller in size than currently believed, the researchers say. They calculated that the radius of this giant is 50 thousand kilometers (a little more modest than that of Saturn). Because, they say, the planet shines weakly - it just has a smaller surface area than astronomers previously believed.
Based on the typical average density of giant planets, the authors of this work calculated that the mass of the phenomenal planet is only a quarter of the mass of Jupiter (or 80 Earth masses), and not 3-5, much less 8 Jupiters, as stated in previous studies.
Let us return, however, to the birth of the Moon. “Earth was hit by an object one-tenth its mass, and other planets in our solar system likely experienced similar catastrophes, including Venus and Uranus,” Meyer says, and continues. “If we assume that this pattern extends to other stellar worlds, we can say that in 2M1207 we see the consequences of the collision of young planets with masses of 72 and 8 Earth masses.”
Maybe such collisions in the first millions of years of life of planetary systems are not so rare? The history of planet 2M1207b is not the only proof of this. We told you that there are two planets in the constellation Aries collided
Battleship “Victory” – Legendary sailing ships
Formation of a peptide bond Two equivalent forms
Kasatkin Mikhail Alexandrovich (1902–1974) M Kasatkin