
Something Twice the Size of Earth Slammed into Uranus and Knocked It Over (2018) - kartikkumar
https://www.technology.org/2018/12/31/something-twice-the-size-of-earth-slammed-into-uranus-and-knocked-it-over-on-its-side/
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hn_throwaway_99
I've been alive for many, many decades. I wish I could say I've matured past
Uranus double entendres, but I haven't.

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notacoward
I will freely admit that I had the same reaction to the headline. Ow! I think
I'd remember something like that.

#forever12

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Roboprog
Title is a bit click-bait-y :-)

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8bitsrule
The simulation suggests it _could_ have happened that way. That doesn't
translate well into that headline. (Given the domain name, a person might hope
for better.)

Impact hypotheses are a popular type of explanation. Some may survive actual
exposure to evidence, and eventually become theories. This is quite an old
idea (as is the idea that the Moon impacted the Earth); maybe one day it'll
pan out.

Until then, it'd be great to see fewer hypotheses in 'Science News' headlines
... and more evidence.

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perl4ever
If the Moon impacted the Earth, why do both appear to still be here?

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becga
The author Zecharia Sitchin wrote about this in one or more of his books. His
claim is that the Sumerians wrote about this exact thing.

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Arnt
So Uranus is "tilted on its side relative to its fellow planets, by about 98
degrees." Why is that not an 82-degree rotation?

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tangent128
Axial tilt is sometimes defined such that 0° is when the orbital and
rotational axes align, _including direction of rotation_ ; Venus has a tilt of
177° by this standard, because of its retrograde rotation compared to the
majority of the planets.

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staticautomatic
In theory, would it be possible to look for the object by looking in the
direction predicted by the model?

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3R3130R
if something is rotating clockwise with respect to surroundings. let us say,
and we were to then turn the object 180 degrees in a plane perpendicular to
its rotation, the result is an object that is now rotating COUNTERCLOCKWISE
with respect to its surroundings.

In summary, an impact with a another rotating object and transfer of momentum
is not the only way. the object could have undergone a pole flip.

