Asteroid Belt was once a Planet or Large Moon

[oldnewideas]

July 24 - 30 New Scientist .. article 'Keeping the Solar Wind at Bay.'

Paraphrase from 3rd paragraph on page 40 .. 'Nasa's Galileo spacecraft flew by asteroids Ida and Gaspra in the early 1990s, finding both to hage weak magnetic fields, meaning they were both once part of a large body with molten interior and magnetic field, a whole planet or moon that got smashed apart in a collision.'

Why has this information not been passed on to the general public in a mass information way? If it has been passed on, why do so many people supposedly educated in cosmology maintain that the asteroid field was never a planet?

[neufer]

July 24 - 30 New Scientist .. article 'Keeping the Solar Wind at Bay.'

Paraphrase from 3rd paragraph on page 40 .. 'Nasa's Galileo spacecraft flew by asteroids Ida and Gaspra in the early 1990s, finding both to hage weak magnetic fields, meaning they were both once part of a large body with molten interior and magnetic field, a whole planet or moon that got smashed apart in a collision.' Why has this information not been passed on to the general public in a mass information way? If it has been passed on, why do so many people supposedly educated in cosmology maintain that the asteroid field was never a planet?

Apparently, nobody quite understands what this all means.

<<When originally published, the Titius–Bode law was approximately satisfied by all the known planets — Mercury through Saturn — with a gap between the fourth and fifth planets. It was regarded as interesting, but of no great importance until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 which happens to fit neatly into the series. Based on this discovery, Bode urged a search for a fifth planet. Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, was found at Bode's predicted position in 1801. Bode's law was then widely accepted until Neptune was discovered in 1846 and found not to satisfy Bode's law. Simultaneously, the large number of known asteroids in the belt resulted in Ceres no longer being considered a planet. (It is now understood that no planet could have formed in the belt, due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter.)

Bode's law was discussed as an example of fallacious reasoning by the astronomer and logician Charles Sanders Peirce in 1898.>>

<<It is believed that planetesimals in the main asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of the Solar Nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt. Simulations and a discontinuity in spin rate and spectral properties suggest that asteroids larger than approximately 120 km in diameter accreted during that early era, whereas smaller bodies are fragments from collisions between asteroids during or after the Jovian disruption. At least two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta, grew large enough to melt and differentiate, with heavy metallic elements sinking to the core, leaving rocky minerals in the crust. In the Nice model, many Kuiper Belt objects are captured in the outer Main Belt, at distances greater than 2.6 AU. Most were later ejected by Jupiter, but those that remained may be the D-type asteroids, and possibly include Ceres.>>

<<There is no solid theoretical explanation of the Titius–Bode law, but if there is one it is possibly a combination of orbital resonance and shortage of degrees of freedom: any stable planetary system has a high probability of satisfying a Titius–Bode-type relationship. Because of this, it has been called a "rule" rather than a "law." However, astrophysicist Alan Boss states that it is just a coincidence, and the planetary science journal Icarus no longer accepts papers attempting to provide 'improved' versions of the law.

Orbital resonance from major orbiting bodies creates regions around the Sun that are free of long-term stable orbits. Results from simulations of planetary formation support the idea that a randomly chosen stable planetary system will likely satisfy a Titius–Bode law.

Dubrulle and Graner have shown that power-law distance rules can be a consequence of collapsing-cloud models of planetary systems possessing two symmetries: rotational invariance (the cloud and its contents are axially symmetric) and scale invariance (the cloud and its contents look the same on all length scales), the latter being a feature of many phenomena considered to play a role in planetary formation, such as turbulence.

There is a decidedly limited number of systems on which Bode's law can presently be tested. Two of the solar planets have a number of large moons that appear possibly to have been created by a process similar to that which created the planets themselves. The four large satellites of Jupiter plus the largest inner satellite — Amalthea — adhere to a regular, but non-Bode, spacing with the four innermost locked into orbital periods that are each twice that of the next inner satellite. The large moons of Uranus have a regular, but non-Bode, spacing. However, according to Martin Harwit, "a slight new phrasing of this law permits us to include not only planetary orbits around the Sun, but also the orbits of moons around their parent planets." The new phrasing is known as Dermott's law.>>

[oldnewideas]

July 24 - 30 New Scientist .. article 'Keeping the Solar Wind at Bay.'

Paraphrase from 3rd paragraph on page 40 .. 'Nasa's Galileo spacecraft flew by asteroids Ida and Gaspra in the early 1990s, finding both to hage weak magnetic fields, meaning they were both once part of a large body with molten interior and magnetic field, a whole planet or moon that got smashed apart in a collision.' Why has this information not been passed on to the general public in a mass information way? If it has been passed on, why do so many people supposedly educated in cosmology maintain that the asteroid field was never a planet?

Apparently, nobody quite understands what this all means.

<<When originally published, the Titius–Bode law was approximately satisfied by all the known planets — Mercury through Saturn — with a gap between the fourth and fifth planets. It was regarded as interesting, but of no great importance until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 which happens to fit neatly into the series. Based on this discovery, Bode urged a search for a fifth planet. Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, was found at Bode's predicted position in 1801. Bode's law was then widely accepted until Neptune was discovered in 1846 and found not to satisfy Bode's law. Simultaneously, the large number of known asteroids in the belt resulted in Ceres no longer being considered a planet. (It is now understood that no planet could have formed in the belt, due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter.)

Bode's law was discussed as an example of fallacious reasoning by the astronomer and logician Charles Sanders Peirce in 1898.>>

<<It is believed that planetesimals in the main asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of the Solar Nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt. Simulations and a discontinuity in spin rate and spectral properties suggest that asteroids larger than approximately 120 km in diameter accreted during that early era, whereas smaller bodies are fragments from collisions between asteroids during or after the Jovian disruption. At least two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta, grew large enough to melt and differentiate, with heavy metallic elements sinking to the core, leaving rocky minerals in the crust. In the Nice model, many Kuiper Belt objects are captured in the outer Main Belt, at distances greater than 2.6 AU. Most were later ejected by Jupiter, but those that remained may be the D-type asteroids, and possibly include Ceres.>>

<<There is no solid theoretical explanation of the Titius–Bode law, but if there is one it is possibly a combination of orbital resonance and shortage of degrees of freedom: any stable planetary system has a high probability of satisfying a Titius–Bode-type relationship. Because of this, it has been called a "rule" rather than a "law." However, astrophysicist Alan Boss states that it is just a coincidence, and the planetary science journal Icarus no longer accepts papers attempting to provide 'improved' versions of the law.

Orbital resonance from major orbiting bodies creates regions around the Sun that are free of long-term stable orbits. Results from simulations of planetary formation support the idea that a randomly chosen stable planetary system will likely satisfy a Titius–Bode law.

Dubrulle and Graner have shown that power-law distance rules can be a consequence of collapsing-cloud models of planetary systems possessing two symmetries: rotational invariance (the cloud and its contents are axially symmetric) and scale invariance (the cloud and its contents look the same on all length scales), the latter being a feature of many phenomena considered to play a role in planetary formation, such as turbulence.

There is a decidedly limited number of systems on which Bode's law can presently be tested. Two of the solar planets have a number of large moons that appear possibly to have been created by a process similar to that which created the planets themselves. The four large satellites of Jupiter plus the largest inner satellite — Amalthea — adhere to a regular, but non-Bode, spacing with the four innermost locked into orbital periods that are each twice that of the next inner satellite. The large moons of Uranus have a regular, but non-Bode, spacing. However, according to Martin Harwit, "a slight new phrasing of this law permits us to include not only planetary orbits around the Sun, but also the orbits of moons around their parent planets." The new phrasing is known as Dermott's law.>>

Laws of physics are broken all the time .. the best understandings change all the time .. so even the 'fact' that the two asteroids have weak magnetic fields does not have to mean they were part of a larger body with a moltern interior .. they could simply have been magnetized by close proximity to a strong magnetic field if the asteroids are composed of the right composition of materials, and if they passed the lage magnetic field at speeds which permitted escape. I apologize for, in my original post, sounding as if something is the way it appears to be when really we understand so little of what appears we are like mice approaching a mousetrap loaded with the most delectable cheese that the moon is made of, Green, with veins of purple .. or, for that matter we are merely like blind people approaching a miracle worker who can give them sight, and for the existance of that miracle person or persons there are historical references, including but not restricted to medical publications in this era.

[bystander]

The total mass of the asteroid belt (~2.5*10²¹ kg) is less than 3% the mass of the Moon (~7.5*10²² kg).

[neufer]

The total mass of the asteroid belt (~2.5*10²¹ kg) is less than 3% the mass of the Moon (~7.5*10²² kg).

Which is less than one percent of the original {~Mercury (~3.3*10²³ kg) mass} planet?

<<The mass of all the objects of the Main asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to be about 3.0-3.6 × 10²¹ kg, or about 4 percent of the mass of the Moon. Of this, Ceres comprises 0.95 × 10²¹ kg, some 32 percent of the total. It is believed that planetesimals in the main asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of the Solar Nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt.>>

[Chris Peterson]

July 24 - 30 New Scientist .. article 'Keeping the Solar Wind at Bay.'

Paraphrase from 3rd paragraph on page 40 .. 'Nasa's Galileo spacecraft flew by asteroids Ida and Gaspra in the early 1990s, finding both to hage weak magnetic fields, meaning they were both once part of a large body with molten interior and magnetic field, a whole planet or moon that got smashed apart in a collision.'

Why has this information not been passed on to the general public in a mass information way? If it has been passed on, why do so many people supposedly educated in cosmology maintain that the asteroid field was never a planet?

Because there is no evidence that the asteroid belt was ever a planet, and there is powerful evidence that it was not.

The report certainly does not suggest that the asteroid belt came from a planet. What it says is that some bodies in the asteroid belt are remnants of earlier bodies that were large enough to produce magnetic fields- something already understood simply from the evidence provided by differentiated meteorites. It does not take a very large body to have a molten iron core and a resultant magnetic field.

The observation of large asteroidal bodies with magnetic fields supports the existing theory regarding the formation of the asteroid belt, not anything new!