Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2020

24 EXOPLANETS Collisions between planets do not only occur in novels and science fiction movies. Astronomers have discov- ered that one of these catastrophic events occurred not too many years ago in a planetary system relatively close to us. Events of this kind also occurred in our solar system shortly after its formation, but the new findings indicate that planetary collisions can occur even in ma- ture planetary systems. SOFIA confirms collision betwe planets by Michele Ferrara revised by Damian G. Allis NASA Solar System Ambassador JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2020 A graphical representa- tion of a cata- strophic collision between two rocky exoplanets in the planetary system BD +20 307, which re- duced both bodies to dusty debris. [NASA/SOFIA/ Lynette Cook]