Earth and Venus are somewhat similar planets when it comes to size. But there are vast differences. Earth is moderate and supports life while Venus is quite literally hellish. It is the hottest planet in the solar system with surface temperature of 475 degrees Celcius.

The early solar system was a violent place. There were huge collisions between space rocks. Some of them grew in size because of that and became planet. Both, Earth and Venus underwent this violent process.

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Now a study has said that there were some space rocks that grazed the Earth but collided with Venus. So what was hit-and-run for Earth was a full-blown collision for Venus. In other words, these huge space rocks ‘bounced off’ the early Earth and collided with early Venus often becoming part of the planet.

The study has been published in Planetary Journal Science.

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The scientists carrying out the study analysed 4000 computer simulations. In these simulations, Mars-sized protoplanets were crashing with early Earth and Venus. The researchers found that about half of the space rocks just grazed the Earth and about half of these collided with Venus. Grazing the Earth slowed down the speed of these protoplanets because of which they were able to collide and stick with Venus.

Such studies hold potential to shed more light on why there is (literally) world of a difference between Earth and Venus, planets with similar mass and almost similar orbit around the Sun.