Topic: Neptune May Have Eaten a Planet and Stolen Its Moon

[sam]

jitendraharlalka noted a piece about the origins of Neptune. There is a theory now that it once ate a super-earth in the outer solar system, and kept its moon as some sort of macabre trophy to make sure that Mars and Venus didn't get any big ideas.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/23/199223/Neptune-May-Have-Eaten-a-Planet-and-Stolen-Its-Moon


hmmmm... need to read this properly but I'm not convinced.

[Simon]

Who, or what, is "jitendraharlalka"?

[sam]

oh some user on slashdot I guess.... see the link inside the article

[sam]

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

[Simon]

Ah, right.

[sam]

my fault, should have just gone to the source.

[Clive]

In scientific circles New Scientist is the equivalent of the Sun - very entertaining but highly speculative.  All good fun of course and don't we love it!     It's a very interesting scenario but the article does not contain any real evidence that this event took place.  Nevertheless it makes a great bedtime story!    

[sam]

indeed... and we have to have some story telling in science otherwise there would be no exploration of the "maybe"

[Clive]

We have to get people hooked somehow!   

[sam]

I thought that was the point of Star Trek?

[Simon]

\\// 

[Clive]