Call it a planetary pile up. Astronomers have discovered the remains of a collision of two planet-sized bodies in a well-established solar system in the Milky Way. They think this kind of event is rare, but the findings suggest that there’s no such thing as a safe solar neighborhood. Back when our own solar system was still forming, collisions between young planets were commonplace. In fact, astronomers think our moon is the product of an encounter between Earth and a Mars-sized body. (source: sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
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