Thursday, June 24, 2010

Some unusual things in the solar system, and Bode's Law

The following is a partial list of unexplained or partially explained
things of the solar system:

The planets come in similar but not identically sized pairs:

Venus and Earth
Jupiter and Saturn
Uranus and Neptune
Pluto and Eris, and others (dwarf planets)

Mercury, and Mars do not follow this pattern.

Bode's law is a simple mathematical formula.
Putting an integer from 0 to 9 accurately predicts the
orbital position of most of the planets , and is like a "harmonic"
which gets larger and larger, as follows:

a = orbital distance in astronomical units ( earth = 1)

a =( n +4 ) / 10
where n = 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384

or

a = ( 3 * 2^m + 4 ) / 10

( 2 to the m power )

where m = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

except:

There is a missing one between Mars and Jupiter.
Ceres the dwarf planet (580 miles in diameter)
lies in the spot where the missing planet would be.
Ceres is round but the other big asteroids are irregular.
if the planets didn't accrete from dust,
thiere could have been an exploded planet
at this position. Mars is slightly off, and Neptune
is closer than this would predict it to be.
Mercury's orbit is highly elliptical, so is Mars.
Venus hardly spins at all, very slowly. No magnetic
field to protect it from the sun.
Maybe it spun faster in the past.

The Earth's moon has many Maria (dark lava plains)
on the Earth-facing side, very few on the farside.

Mars has heavy cratering on one side,
and smooth on the other. Cracks and breaks look like it
had some planet wide catastrophe. 4 big volcanoes
all in the same region ( Tharsis).
Mars has evidence of running water in the past.
Water channels with erosion.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot never goes away. What lies under it?
Saturn's small inner moon Enceladus has ice fountains
Titan has big lakes and rivers of methane,
and a sizeable atmospheric pressure.
Uranus is tipped on its side, even more than 90 degrees,
so it really spins backwards.
and Neptune's Triton orbits in the opposite direction
of the other moons, and that the planet rotates in.
(it most likely is a captured dwarf planet like Pluto)

All Gas giants and ice giants except Uranus
give off more heat than they receive from the sun.
What is the source of the internal heat? Contraction?
Initial heat of formation?
Radioactive Decay? Chemical reactions?
They are far too small for nuclear fusion, like the sun.

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