What makes even more sense is
that we had two Jupiter sized planets working in similar orbits accumulating
mass. This configuration is naturally
unstable, but may well persevere until Jupiter dominated by topping off in mass
and began ejecting new planets into the inner solar system. This planet was too large to fall into a
stable orbit with the Jupiter Sol binary and eventually was driven out of the
system allowing the remaining planets to settle into dynamically stable
orbits. This planet may well have helped
Jupiter grow by disturbing mass into Jupiter’s orbit.
This work confirms the dynamic
need for such an object. It is worth
observing that a natural planet formed from the dust clouds of the early solar
system are all gas giants. Rocky planets
such as the handful we observe in the inner solar system are formed by outright
ejection from Jupiter itself as it becomes too large to remain dynamically
stable. That Jupiter was at the dynamic
edge was confirmed by theoretical work published some fifty years ago and
largely ignored.
The existence of two proto Jupiters
is naturally dynamically unstable as it is dominated by the third order Pythagorean
metric which is divergent and would inevitably tend to send one out on a
natural hypotenuse.
I have posted in the past that
the inner solar system is produced by ejection from Jupiter and that Venus may
well have been deliberately produced recently in order to provide a back up
habitat for life in this solar system.
Conforming to that hypothesis is the high surface rock temperature on
Venus and the red spot scar on Jupiter.
It would have been triggered by simply precipitating a bombardment of Jupiter
with material from the Kuiper Belt by a technically capable civilization (who
also ended out Ice Age with the same means).
It is worth recalling that I made
these conjectures with far less evidence.
Since then we have both new evidence and refining evidence that actually
improves the original conjectures. A
conjecture opens your eyes to look. If
on looking, you gain both the evidence and additional conforming insight, one
is surely on the right road with the original conjecture.
Giant Planet Ejected from the Solar System?
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2011) — Just as an expert chess player
sacrifices a piece to protect the queen, the solar system may have given up a
giant planet and spared Earth, according to an article recently published in The
Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"We have all sorts of clues about the early evolution of the solar
system," says author Dr. David Nesvorny of the Southwest Research
Institute. "They come from the analysis of the trans-Neptunian population
of small bodies known as the Kuiper Belt, and from the lunar cratering
record."
These clues suggest that the orbits of giant planets were affected by a
dynamical instability when the solar system was only about 600 million years
old. As a result, the giant planets and smaller bodies scattered away from each
other.
Some small bodies moved into the Kuiper Belt and others traveled
inward, producing impacts on the terrestrial planets and the Moon. The giant
planets moved as well. Jupiter, for example, scattered most small bodies
outward and moved inward.
This scenario presents a problem, however. Slow changes in Jupiter's orbit,
such as the ones expected from interaction with small bodies, would have
conveyed too much momentum to the orbits of the terrestrial planets. Stirring
up or disrupting the inner solar system and possibly causing Earth to collide
with Mars or Venus.
"Colleagues suggested a clever way around this problem," says
Nesvorny. "They proposed that Jupiter's orbit quickly changed when Jupiter
scattered off of Uranus or Neptune during the dynamical instability in the
outer solar system." The "jumping-Jupiter" theory, as it is
known, is less harmful to the inner solar system, because the orbital coupling
between the terrestrial planets and Jupiter is weak if Jupiter jumps.
Nesvorny conducted thousands of computer simulations of the early solar
system to test the jumping-Jupiter theory. He found that, as hoped for, Jupiter
did in fact jump by scattering from Uranus or Neptune. When it jumped, however,
Uranus or Neptune was knocked out of the solar system. "Something was
clearly wrong," he says.
Motivated by these results, Nesvorny wondered whether the early solar
system could have had five giant planets instead of four. By running the
simulations with an additional giant planet with mass similar to that of Uranus
or Neptune, things suddenly fell in place. One planet was ejected from the
solar system by Jupiter, leaving four giant planets behind, and Jupiter jumped,
leaving the terrestrial planets undisturbed.
"The possibility that the solar system had more than four giant
planets initially, and ejected some, appears to be conceivable in view of the
recent discovery of a large number of free-floating planets in interstellar
space, indicating the planet ejection process could be a common
occurrence," says Nesvorny.
This research was funded by the National Lunar Science Institute and
the National Science Foundation.
The paper, "Young Solar System's Fifth Giant Planet?" by Dr.
David Nesvorny was published online by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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