What a smashing time, cheer astroboffins: Epic exoplanet space prang evidence eyeballed

Astronomers believe they may have uncovered the first tantalizing evidence of two exoplanets that have smashed into one another, according to new research. Over short timescales, certain planets appear to be stagnant. Scientists have to find signs that they have undergone drastic changes that took place over millions or …

[John 73]

Some mistake, shurely?

"Kepler 107c could have been born when two exoplanets ten times the mass of the Sun crashed into one another"

Planets that are 10 times the mass of our Sun? Mind-blowing if that's correct, but from context I suspect it should be "ten times the mass of the Earth"...

[MJB7]

Re: Some mistake, shurely?

Yup. Bodies 10 times the mass of the sun are not planets - they are stars. Damn it, bodies 10 times *smaller* than the sun are stars!

[Ryan Kendall]

Yep it's earth, the quote was misquoted. :-p

[Scroticus Canis]

Quote? What Quote?

The misquote has since been deleted I presume. No mention of masses in the current article.

[Torben Mogensen]

This happened to Earth

The modern theory of the formation of Earth and its moon is that two planets in near-identical orbits collided and merged, and that the impact ejected a large mass that became the moon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This happened to Earth

There's a scifi movie about this called Another Earth - set in today's world it's quite good.

[MonkeyBob]

Simulated crash

Why is that planet(s) made from tiny balls? Did the CGI budget not stretch to Universa Sandbox?

http://universesandbox.com/

[Tom 7]

Re: Simulated crash

Anything like this around that doesnt cost?

[TeeCee]

Re: Simulated crash

Damn. I'd just come to the conclusion that two whole planets made entirely of the knobbly liquorice allsorts had collided, but Occam's razor says you're right here and it's just cheap imagery.

I'll push "make working FTL drive" back down the to-do list....

[Black Betty]

Re: Simulated crash

Because supercomputers can only carry out exact calculations on a limited number of particles. The same reason simulations of galactic collisions are modeled using only a few million stars instead of the hundreds of billions that real galaxies are actually made of.

Universe sandbox makes a lot of pre-programed assumptions that look good, but only bear a passing resemblance to reality.

[Dr Who]

My teachers called me Kepler 107c at school. Well, they called me surprisingly dense at any rate.

[89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921]

It's bigger than Uranus

[89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921]

...as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's bigger than Uranus"

Dammit, who told???

[Binra]

Seriously

Astroboffins get funded to come up with Astrobaffle?

No doubt the simulation was rigorously set up to optimise the model.

Why are electrical forces not openly acknowledged in our Cosmology?

Instead of digging ever deeper into absurdity we could admit we don't know and then identify conjecture as such but analyze evidence to see if it is supported. Its a strange idea I know and will probably never catch on. But perhaps a loss of face - over millions of years - will reveal a more coherent appreciation of Life, the Universe and Everything.

[Roj Blake]

Mercury

Mercury also has a massive core for its size.