Wednesday, 24 Sep, 2008 Science

A group of scientists from the United States stated that they have found evidence of the first planetary collision which occurred in a solar system that looks like ours and located 300 light years away from Earth.

During their study of estimating the age of a sun-like star called BD+20 307 and located in the constellation Aries, scientists from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) noticed massive trails of dust. They believe that the dust is the outcome of direct collision of two planets that moved around the star.

According to the American astronomers such catastrophic crash can only take place in a mature solar system.

Benjamin Zuckerman, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, noted that the event can be compared to the collision of Earth and Venus. He outlined that astronomers observed such a phenomenon for the first time.

Currently American and French scientists are analyzing computer models to estimate the chances of a similar collision in our own solar system. Until now the computer revealed several models that had shown little chances of our planet and Venus colliding in the next billion years.

Source: Press TV