NASA’s Hubble captures asteroids colliding with each other around a nearby star, revealing violent planet formation |
Planetary systems begin in chaos. In their primitive form, many rocky and icy objects are careening through space, smashing into each other, breaking apart, and accumulating to form planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. For many decades, planetary scientists assumed this “history of violence” ended abruptly after a relatively quick passage after planets achieved stable orbits….