Mars Impact

The recent headlines that Mars was impacted in it's early history really captured my imagination. As a result, I had to take some time to create this image. In it, a large planetoid slams into the still-cooling Mars. I imagine that Mars was probably still soft and pliable and the two bodies colliding appeared to be more of a splat than a bang. Obviously, the brightness of such a catastrophic impact would have been much greater but that would not have made a very good illustration at all. (Imagine a big glow with the edge of a planet barely visible.)

In the background, the remnants of the early nebula our star and planets formed from is still visible. Before long, radiation and stellar motions will disperse the remnants and our galactic sky will be clear