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Commonmark migration

Can planets collide ...

According to Wikipedia

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined in August 2006 that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body which:

  • is in orbit around the Sun,
  • has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
  • has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

This last requirement makes it difficult, if not impossible, for planets to collide.


... and not melt together?

Some planets are gaseous/fluid (e.g. Jupiter) and don't have anything solid to melt.

I suspect that any body large enough to meet the second requirement of the IAU definition, colliding at a closing speed anywhere near planetary orbital speeds, is very likely to involve energies easily large enough to convert any solid matter to a fluid of some sort.

If you look at smaller events such as the hypothetical collision between Earth and Theia, there is a fairly thorough coalescence of matter from both bodies.

in the aftermath of the giant impact, while the Earth and the proto-lunar disk were molten and vaporized,

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