Astrónomos Detectan Rara Colisión Planetaria Cerca de Gaia20ehk

"...An otherwise boring star acting very strangely...."

"...It went completely bonkers...."

"...I can't emphasize enough that stars like our sun don't do that...."

"...We were like 'Hello, what's going on here?'..."

"...It's incredible that various telescopes caught this impact in real time...."

"...There are only a few other planetary collisions of any kind on record, and none that bear so many similarities to the impact that created the Earth and moon...."

"...If we can observe more moments like this elsewhere in the galaxy, it will teach us lots about the formation of our world...."

"...Andy’s unique work leverages decades of data to find things that are happening slowly — astronomy stories that play out over the course of a decade...."

"...Not many researchers are looking for phenomena in this way, which means that all kinds of discoveries are potentially up for grabs...."

"...The behavior of Gaia20ehk, however, posed a new mystery...."

"...The team was stumped, until Davenport suggested that they use data from a different telescope to look for infrared light rather than visible light...."

"...The infrared light curve was the complete opposite of the visible light...."

"...Which could mean that the material blocking the star is hot — so hot that it's glowing in the infrared...."

"...A cataclysmic collision between planets would certainly produce enough heat to explain the infrared energy...."

"...What's more, the right kind of collision could also explain those initial dips in light...."

"...That could be caused by the two planets spiraling closer and closer to each other...."

"...At first, they had a series of grazing impacts, which wouldn't produce a lot of infrared energy...."

"...Then, they had their big catastrophic collision, and the infrared really ramped up...."

"...There are also clues that the collision resembles the one that created the Earth and moon about four and half billion years ago...."

"...Scientists like Tzanidakis and Davenport can't know for sure until the dust settles — literally — in the system...."

"...That could take a few years, or a few million...."

"...In the meantime, their discovery is a call to action to find more collisions...."

"...Some back-of-the-napkin math by Davenport suggests that Rubin could find 100 new impacts over the next 10 years...."

"...That could ultimately help narrow the search for habitable worlds outside our solar system...."

"...How rare is the event that created the Earth and moon? That question is fundamental to astrobiology...."

"...It seems like the moon is one of the magical ingredients that makes the Earth a good place for life...."

"...It can help shield Earth from some asteroids, it produces ocean tides and weather that allow chemistry and biology to mix globally, and it may even play a role in driving tectonic plate activity...."

"...Right now, we don't know how common these dynamics are...."

"...But if we catch more of these collisions, we'll start to figure it out...."