ok, about 5 billion years ago Earth was hit by another samller planet the size of Mars. Due to this impact a large peice of Earth exploded off into space. This explains why Earth has a tilted axis. The debris of the planet that hit and Earths own debris obviously formed our moon.

These type of collisions were fairly common during the early development of our Solar System.

The scenario is useful in explaining why certain planets are the way they are today.

For example, the moon is severely lacking in metals. It is mostly composed of rock. The impact theory explains this well. The moon is said to have been formed when the impacting object blasted a large portion of earth's rocky crust into earth orbit.

It also explains why Mercury is almost all metal.
An impact stripped it almost completely of its outer crust leaving mostly the iron metallic core behind.

Another planet that is thought to have been struck is Uranus. Unlike all the other planets, which are mostly tilted at a 30 degree angle, Uranus rolls along at a 98 degree angle with its polar regions facing the sun and its rings pointing up and down instead of sideways as Saturn's do. The impact of a protoplanet ten times as massive as our earth striking one of its poles explains this extreme tilt.

Yet another is Venus,
The sun as well as most of its planets conserve the motion of the original gas and dust cloud from which they were formed. Venus is different. Venus rotates in a retrograde fashion or in the opposite direction-from west to east. So the sun there rises in the West and sets in the East. This is attributed to an impact which completely reversed its rotational direction.

Mars also faced impact.
In this instance the planet's tilt, or incline was changed.
Also, the Martian atmosphere was completely blown into space. This orbital tilt and loss of atmosphere is one explanation given for the severe conditions existing on Mars today.

Pluto's moon, Charon, is also suspected as having been cause by an impact on Pluto.

Have you read 'The Mars Mystery' by Graham Hancock??

Here is a piece taken from his website........

Johannes Kepler, the 17th century astronomer and mathematician, once exclaimed that 'there are more comets in the sky than there are fishes in the sea'. In 1990, a NASA astronomer observed that 'there are more professionals working in a single fast-food restaurant than there are professionals scanning the sky for asteroids.'

The search for earth-bound space debris has traditionally received only minimal funding and although improvements are planned they may be too little and too late. With inadequate technology and personnel, it is frighteningly unlikely that our lookouts will spot an earth-bound object in sufficient time for us to do anything about it. The developed world is in a complacent slumber, and neither fantastical Hollywood movies nor dry probability estimates can awaken it to the reality of impending disaster.

In The Mars Mystery, Hancock, Bauval and Grigsby try something very different - they develop a firmly historical perspective on a catastrophe we have yet to experience.

The story begins with Mars. The authors examine and approve the theory that our planetary neighbour once held a dense atmosphere and oceans of water but was extinguished with incredible violence by a barrage of rock many thousands of years ago. They also provide an up-to-date, comprehensive and refreshingly balanced review of the photographic evidence regarding the past existence of a Martian civilisation. Equally absorbing is the investigation into NASA's handling of the controversy surrounding the photographs, which included the issuing of false statements. The authors relate this to the history of disinformation policies pursued by American defence institutions.

The scope of the book then broadens to cover the impacts that have involved Earth, our Moon and the other scarred bodies in our solar system. The reader may be shocked to discover that our Moon is literally still vibrating from an impact that was observed by shocked Earthlings hundreds of years ago. A particularly compelling chapter, incorporating evidence from a number of respected astronomers, concerns a swarm of comets, including a giant one up to 300 kilometres across, that entered an Earth-crossing orbit around 50,000 years ago. The giant comet subsequently fragmented, flooding the orbital path with millions of lethal asteroids and vastly increasing the chances of a collision with Earth. In fact, in all probability Earth has already been hit by one of these fragments in the last 20,000 years. Here the place of The Mars Mystery amongst Hancock's other titles becomes clear. Could such an impact have been behind the dramatic and hitherto unexplained end of the last ice age? Could the survivors of that cataclysm have passed down, to all the great post-ice age civilisations, a warning of what is to come? There is an abundance of historical, archaeological and geological evidence, summarised in The Mars Mystery (and covered in more depth in Fingerprints of the Gods), to suggest the affirmative.

With effectiveness lent by its historical perspective, The Mars Mystery turns implausibility into intrigue and invites both dread and hope. Will it wake us up? At least it's a start ...

Speed of light 186,000 miles per second.

That's 7 1/2 times around the earth in one second!
But that's 4.3 years to the nearest star.
Maybe our destiny is to be restricted to the exploration of our solar system and nothing beyond that.

Any opinions?

I thought this was such an interesting topic, I've blasted it back from onblivion and into the realms of new forumers to add their own comments :D

Incidentaly Lickszz you posted the original post on my birthday almost 2 years ago :wow:

Originally posted by Lickszz
Uranus rolls along at a 98 degree angle with its polar regions facing the sun and its rings pointing up and down instead of sideways
My Arse!:hihi: :hihi: :hihi:
Sorry I wanted to be the first to do this!

But seriously... Do you think the building blocks for life on Earth were imported from Mars?
Are there any similar building-blocks on the Moon - it being a bit of the original earth???

Does that make us Martians? :huh: Hmmm