First images of new solar system forming help explain Earth's own origins - National Post

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Theia was absorbed into Earth, according to theory, and other planets have similarly “died.” For example, these theories of planetary formation explain such wondrous phenomena as the Almahata Sitta asteroid, which fell from space into the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan in 2008, tracked all the way by an astronomer, and later recovered, only to yield massive diamonds that are thought to have formed inside a long-lost planet.

The sheer size of the diamonds was evidence for this planet, which is thought to have collided with another, with its remnants either absorbed, burned up in the Sun, or perhaps escaped orbit into outer space, leaving behind just this small asteroid that eventually fell to Earth.

Watching this process in its formative stages is a scientific luxury that has so far eluded astronomers.

“These multi-planet systems are intriguing laboratories to study dynamical interactions and scattering events between several planetary-mass companions, which is crucial for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems,” said a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reporting results from a research group led out of Leiden University in the Netherlands called the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey.

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2020-07-22 13:03:07Z
CBMie2h0dHBzOi8vbmF0aW9uYWxwb3N0LmNvbS9uZXdzL3dvcmxkL3R5Yy04OTk4LTc2MC0xLWZpcnN0LWltYWdlcy1vZi1uZXctc29sYXItc3lzdGVtLWZvcm1pbmctaGVscC1leHBsYWluLWVhcnRocy1vd24tb3JpZ2luc9IBqQFodHRwczovL25hdGlvbmFscG9zdC5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC90eWMtODk5OC03NjAtMS1maXJzdC1pbWFnZXMtb2YtbmV3LXNvbGFyLXN5c3RlbS1mb3JtaW5nLWhlbHAtZXhwbGFpbi1lYXJ0aHMtb3duLW9yaWdpbnMvd2NtLzg4MjNhNDliLTcwMmQtNDNhZS1hNWJkLTdmODk4YmYxNzk5Ny9hbXAv