synestia

synestia

English

This English term is a hot word. Its inclusion on Wiktionary is provisional.

Etymology

syn- (“together”) +‎ Hestia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈnɛstɪə/

Noun

synestia (plural synestias)

1. (astrophysics) A donut-shaped body of vaporized and molten rock formed from the collision of two planet-sized objects.
   • 2017 May 23, SJ Lock, ST Stewart, “The structure of terrestrial bodies: Impact heating, corotation limits, and synestias”, in Journal of Geophysical Research:

     For any rotating planetary body, there is a thermal limit beyond which the rotational velocity at the equator intersects the Keplerian orbital velocity. Beyond this corotation limit (CoRoL), a hot planetary body forms a structure, which we name a synestia, with a corotating inner region connected to a disk-like outer region.

   • 2017 June 3, Shannon Hall, “Early Earth was a molten doughnut”, in New Scientist, volume 234, number 3128, page 10:

     For a brief time during its infancy, Earth was a hot, doughnut-shaped blob called a synestia. […] A synestia has an exterior region marked by clouds of molten rock and dust, all at a scorching 2000°C or hotter.