Neptune may have eaten a planet and stolen its moon

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527522.900-neptune-may-have-eaten-a-planet-and-stolen-its-moon.html

NEPTUNE may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot. The brutal deed could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton.

Neptune's own existence was a puzzle until recently. The dusty cloud that gave birth to the planets probably thinned out further from the sun. With building material so scarce, it is hard to understand how Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, managed to get so big.

But what if they formed closer in? In 2005, a team of scientists proposed that the giant planets shifted positions in an early upheaval (New Scientist, 25 November 2006, p 40). In this scenario, Uranus and Neptune formed much closer to the sun and migrated outwards, possibly swapping places in the process.

That would have left behind enough material just beyond their birthplace to form a planet with twice the Earth's mass, according to calculations published in 2008 by Steven Desch of Arizona State University in Tempe.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Better apologize, Neptune, or you'll have to sit in the Time-Out corner with Pluto.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

2. Jerk planet.

Keep an eye on Neptune. I don't trust it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

4. Maddox warned us.

http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=astrology

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

12. He did, indeed.

n/t

[aquart]

3. Bad Neptune!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. It'll be coming after our lunch money next!

Watchout!

[Xipe Totec]

6. Ironically, it was Saturn that ate his children

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son

[beam me up scottie]

7. LMAO! I always knew that Neptune was no good.

Neptune's peculiar moon Triton may once have been paired with this hypothetical super-Earth, Desch and colleague Simon Porter now say. Triton is larger than Pluto, and it moves through its orbit in the opposite direction to Neptune's rotation, suggesting that it did not form there but was captured instead.

Wait! Has anyone given any thought to how this will affect Madame Fu Fu's charts and predictions?

[Deep13]

8. When will Obama prosecute Neptune for crimes against planets?! nt

[dave29]

9. It's always the quiet ones.

.

[branders seine]

10. wait a minute! Neptune is a rapublican planet?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Whoa, does Neptune have a DU account? -nt

[tridim]

13. Neptune is just jealous of Earth's past..

We got a Moon with a stable orbit. Suck it Neptune. :)

[IDemo]

14. I'm glad it didn't eat Uranus

That would have been ugly.

[chollybocker]

15. Is that why it's so gassy?

[tekisui]

16. No sex threads.

[slampoet]

17. If i did that i'd roll over on my side too.

[Odin2005]

18. BURRRRP!!!

[Solly Mack]

19. Bully

[MisterP]

20. video:

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/video/Solar_System_Sim.mov

aka, "God's washing machine has a 'catastrophic failure'"

[troubledamerican]

21. Velikovskian

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. It does have a whiff of this. Skepticism is reasonable.

But if it's going to be refuted, it must be on its (de)merits, not because it happens to look similar to some woo-woo's rant.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. Suspiciously similar to a James Hogan SF series. :^)