Published 17:19 IST, October 21st 2021

Earth-like planet lost its atmosphere after massive collision 2,00,000 yrs ago: Study

The planet endured the impact at more than 22,000 miles per hour which might have been the reason for the stripping off of its atmosphere. 

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
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Doubling down on research over a collision between entities, a new team of astromers has discovered an Earth-like planet that got its atmosphere wiped away due to a massive collision. Astromers from Massachusetts Institute of Techlogy (MIT) have found first evidence of a 'giant impact' that occurred in a planetary system dubbed HD 172555, suggested a report by Daily Mail. 

Collision 95 light-years away

massive collision, which wiped part of planet's atmosphere, occurred roughly 2,00,000 years ago in a planetary system that is located 95 light-years away from Earth. Published in journal Nature,  findings of study furr revealed that planet endured impact at more than 22,000 miles per hour which might have been reason for stripping off of its atmosphere. 

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study suggests that astromers obtained evidence of incident by monitoring  carbon moxide and dust that surrounded HD 172555 star. ir observations hinted towards a possible collision as  carbon moxide was found circling close to HD 172555, which experts suspected could have only resulted after a collision between two protoplanets similar to size of Earth. team acquired data using  Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile, reported Daily Mail. 

Talking about ir discovery, study's le author, Tajana Schneiderman said that scientists have gared such evidence for first time which has given m ditional insight into protoplanetary collisions, something which we don't have much evidence of. Moreover, Schneiderman also called star system 'weird' as  HD 172555 possesses dust that contains minerals t found in a star along with carbon moxide gas that pints towards a collision. 

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Furr weighing in on evidence, Schneiderman said his team analysed carbon moxide system because this particular star system was pretty interesting and also because carbon moxide is easiest to find while studying gases in debris disks. He reiterated that heavy presence of gas so close to star definitely should have resulted from an impact that occurred so long ago. It is only scenario which experts believe most and have ruled out all or possibilities. 

Im: Twitter/@lucaroundwo1

17:19 IST, October 21st 2021