In the previous episode #13, we looked at what happens when three spheres—planets, soap bubbles, and water droplets—collide.

Known as the giant-impact hypothesis, this proposed event involves a collision between Earth and a hypothetical Mars-sized protoplanet astronomers call Theia.

Approximately 4.5 billion years ago, a planet called Theia slammed into the Earth. The impact melted parts of Earth’s mantle and sent a massive cloud of debris into space. Over time, this debris came ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Earth's chemical makeup solidified just three million years after the Solar System formed—yet it was a later collision with ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Over 4.5 billion years ago, a giant body smashed into Earth in a cosmic collision that birthed our planet's loyal companion, the ...

The moon may have formed through Earth’s collision with close neighbor, a new study finds. One bright day on Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, everything changed. A massive object slammed into the ...

New clues to the origin of the Moon surfaced this week, which reveal that the Earth and Moon are not as similar as previously thought, and part of the protoplanet that helped create the Moon may still ...

rtist's depiction of a collision between two planetary bodies, similar to the hypothesized collision between Theia and the proto-Earth. Source: https://en.wikipedia ...

Earth’s unusually large Moon may not have assembled gradually from a vast ring of debris after all. Under the right conditions, much of it could have emerged as an intact body only hours after another ...

This article predates the current owners of Science Blog. It has not been reviewed under the current editorial process and is kept as part of the archive. Artist’s ...

About 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas collapsing in on itself due to gravity. The Sun, planets, and eventually Earth formed out of the cloud. But when did ...