Discovery Alert: Glowing Cloud Points to a Cosmic Collision

Even within our own solar system, scientists have seen evidence of giant, planetary collisions from long ago. Remaining clues like Uranus’ tilt and the existence of Earth’s moon point to times in our distant history when the planets in our stellar neighborhood slammed together, forever changing their shape and place in orbit. Scientists looking outside our solar system to far off exoplanets can spot similar evidence that, across the universe, planets sometimes crash. In this new study, the evidence of such an impact comes from a cloud of dust and gas with a strange, fluctuating luminosity.