These findings lend credence to the fast - pebble - collapse theory of planetesimal formation, says Joseph Masiero, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., who was not involved in the work. (sciencenews.org)
The present consensus is that the Moon formed as the result of a giant impact of an approximately Mars - sized planetesimal with the proto - Earth. (sciencedaily.com)
We have resolved the dust - producing planetesimal belt of a debris disc at 100 -LCB- \ mu -RCB- m for the first time. (arxiv.org)