Science

Worlds in Collision is a book by Immanuel Velikovsky published in 1950. The book postulates that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth (an actual collision is not mentioned). The object allegedly changed Earth's orbit and axis, causing innumerable catastrophes that are mentioned in early mythologies and religions from around the world. The book has been heavily criticized as a work of pseudoscience and catastrophism, and many of its claims are completely rejected by the established scientific community as they are not supported by any available evidence.

In the 1950s, Immanuel Velikovsky propounded catastrophism in several popular books. He speculated that the planet Venus is a former "comet" which was ejected from Jupiter and subsequently 3,500 years ago made two catastrophic close passes by Earth, 52 years apart, and later interacted with Mars, which then had a series of near collisions with Earth which ended in 687 BCE, before settling into its current orbit. Velikovsky used this to explain the biblical plagues of Egypt, the biblical reference to the "Sun standing still" for a day (Joshua 10:12 & 13, explained by changes in Earth's rotation), and the sinking of Atlantis. Scientists vigorously rejected Velikovsky's conjectures.[13]

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When the Russian-American scholar Immanuel Velikovsky wrote “Worlds in Collision” in 1950, describing catastrophic near collisions and the wandering of planets, astronomers dismissed it as crank science. After all, how could anything push around the planets?

The particulars of Velikovsky’s suppositions, based on readings of mythology, are still crank science, but the history of the solar system is now widely accepted as much more chaotic.

The new model has the giant planets forming much closer together, with Uranus and Neptune bunched closer to where Jupiter and Saturn are today. Then their orbits became unstable and Uranus and Neptune were flung outward.

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