Something Twice the Size of Earth Slammed into Uranus and Knocked It Over (2018)

I've been alive for many, many decades. I wish I could say I've matured past Uranus double entendres, but I haven't.

The simulation suggests it <i>could</i> have happened that way. That doesn&#x27;t translate well into that headline. (Given the domain name, a person might hope for better.)<p>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&#x27;ll pan out.<p>Until then, it&#x27;d be great to see fewer hypotheses in &#x27;Science News&#x27; headlines ... and more evidence.

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.

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

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

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.<p>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.