NS: Neptune may have eaten a planet and stolen its moon

[bystander]

Neptune may have eaten a planet and stolen its moon
New Scientist Space - 2010 March 22

NEPTUNE may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot. The brutal deed could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton.

Neptune's own existence was a puzzle until recently. The dusty cloud that gave birth to the planets probably thinned out further from the sun. With building material so scarce, it is hard to understand how Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, managed to get so big.

[bystander]

The Planet That Ate My Super-Earth!
Discovery Space News - 2010 March 25

OK, close your eyes and imagine a small hazy planet floating in black space. Now add the soundtrack theme from the 1976 film Jaws: Duuuuuh-Dunt, . . . Duuuuuh-Dunt, . . . Duuuuuh-Dunt, Duuuuuh-Dunt, Duuuuuh-Dunt, Duuuuuh-Dunt! Next add a huge blue planet rising up from screen bottom and engulfing the little world. Gulp!

Who's the planet stalker? None other than turquoise Neptune.

Hard to believe? In grade school Neptune and its sister world Uranus seemed pretty dull and innocuous. You always wanted to skip past them and go directly to Pluto on the solar system Monopoly board. They didn't have bright rings or a red spot but simply looked like two billiard balls. (Uranus does have a dark spot, but I’m not going there...)

But Neptune has been hiding 4-billion year old clues to interplanetary homicide. Uranus may be a co-conspirator too.

NEWS: Both Uranus and Neptune are special for other reasons. Could they be hiding giant oceans of liquid diamond?

[wonderboy]

HMMMMM, these articles and those contained within the articles got my attention. they might be onto something with there experiments, but wouldnt neptune have just eaten the moon aswell, it makes no sense that the moon gets left. what did it do, look at it and think to itself "hmmmm i could eat ya, but im not gonna, ill keep you for later!"

And whats all this nonsense about asteroids replacing each other?

Fair enough if their model worked, but it looks like they had to twist it to meet exactly what they felt should happen. not exactly what would have happened!