Is Phobos a Mined Asteroid?
by Lee Covino
Goldilocks Burns Her Tongue
Scientists have agreed upon a redefinition of the
'habitable zone' around various types of stars. The zones have shifted
away from the stars, highlighting the likely positions planets have to be in to
retain liquid water. The new 'Habitable Zone' in our solar system now lies
between Earth and Mars. These two planets, one enjoying large oceans and
luscious habitats and the other apparently dead, are at opposite ends of the
habitability spectrum.
"...in
our own solar system, the boundaries of the habitable zone have shifted from
between 0.95 astronomical units (AU, or the distance between Earth and the sun)
and 1.67 AU, to the new range of 0.99 AU to 1.7 AU. "It's a surprise that
Earth is so close to the inner edge of the habitable zone," said astronomer Abel
Méndez of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo." (1)
Given the wealth of life-supporting habitats on
this planets, both in hot and cold climates, one would quite reasonably imagine
that the Earth should be found in the centre of the life-supporting belt around
the Sun. Sticking with the usual Goldilocks analogy, Earth's porridge is pretty
damn hot, as it turns out, and Goldilocks is not amused!
It's surprising to think that moving the Earth just a couple of million miles
closer towards the Sun should effectively wipe out the chances of life here.
Why? Presumably the thinking is that in the past, being closer to the Sun would
have caused the water deposited on this planet to have been swept away by the
early Sun's radiation. Without water, no life could have evolved here.
It seems to me that the theoretical model of habitability now has something of a
problem with the fact that this planet is just so obviously life-supporting,
even luscious in terms of life and water.
I think this helps the case for our planet having
migrated inwards at some time in the past. Now, you might argue that Earth was,
say, 1.5AU originally, in the habitable zone all along, and then (somehow)
migrated inwards to the hottest part of that region once its water/atmosphere
ecosystem was well established. Or, you could look at a broader migration
whereby Earth moved in from further afield, affected by larger planets in its
vicinity, like Jupiter (or something else...). The inner asteroid belt seems a
reasonable suggestion, allowing the water ice on our planet to have become
readily established early on, and settling other issues about where the objects
from this vicinity ended up.
What is amazing is how little fuss scientists make of this issue. Perhaps they
find it a bit embarrassing as an anomaly. They readily discuss the migration of
the outer gas giants to explain all kinds of blatant anomalies, but when it
comes to the Earth seemingly being in the wrong place, they merely shrug their
shoulders.
Written by Andy Lloyd, 31st January 2013
1)
Clara Moskowitz "'Habitable Zone' for Alien Planets, and
Possibly Life, Redefined" 29th January 2013,
http://news.yahoo.com/habitable-zone-alien-planets-possibly-life-redefined-163711393.html
with thanks to Lee
Binary Companions Modelled by
Astrophysicists
Implications for the Dark Star
Theory and Sitchin's Interpretation of Myth
For those reading the Dark Star theory and related
works who wonder whether such a distant object could really be exhibiting such a
wildly eccentric orbit, the latest thinking from astrophysics theorists is a
resounding 'yes'. In fact, models of wide binary systems indicate that
there is a tendency towards eccentricity over time, with the companion skirting
across the planetary system of the main star only very rarely.
"The orbits of very distant or wide stellar
companions often become very eccentric – ie.
less circular – over time, driving the
once-distant star into a plunging orbit that
passes very close to the planets once per
orbital period. The gravity of this
close-passing companion can then wreak havoc on
planetary systems, triggering planetary
scatterings and even ejections.
""The stellar orbits of
wide binaries are very sensitive to disturbances
from other passing stars as well as the tidal
field of the Milky Way," said Nathan Kaib, lead
author of a study published today in Nature
describing the findings. "This causes their
stellar orbits to constantly change their
eccentricity – their degree of circularity. If a
wide binary lasts long enough, it will
eventually find itself with a very high orbital
eccentricity at some point in its life.""
(1)
The stellar companion discussed above would
obviously have a much more significant mass than a sub-brown dwarf companion, so
its violent impact on the inner planetary system of the main star would be
commensurately greater.
As it happens, the astrophysicists who ran these
computerised simulations created scenarios where the Sun had a wide binary
stellar object. They discovered that in over half of the cases they
modelled of our own solar system, one of the major gas giants in our system
would eventually be ejected. Of course, that also means that many of the
scenarios they considered did not create this level of chaos, and I would
have thought that the risk of such massive disruption would be proportional to
the size of the binary companion modelled.
Additionally, these binary star orbital evolutions
take a significant period of time:
""This process takes hundreds of millions of
years if not billions of years to occur in these
binaries. Consequently, planets in these systems
initially form and evolve as if they orbited an
isolated star," said Kaib [postdoctoral
fellow in the Center for Interdisciplinary
Exploration and Research in Astrophysics].
"It is only much later that they begin to feel
the effects of their companion star, which often
times leads to disruption of the planetary
system.""
(1)
This is most
interesting indeed. If the Sun formed
alongside a distant sub-brown dwarf companion,
then the orbit that companion took around the
Sun probably changed greatly over the course of
hundreds of millions of years. It become
more eccentric in that time, its orbit
eventually evolving to such a point that it
grazed close to the Sun, quite a while into the
development of the solar system. This
strikes me as being pretty close to the scenario
written about by Zecharia Sitchin - the usurper
Marduk crashing unexpectedly into the planetary
zone after the Sun's system had become fairly
well established. I believe this was the
Late Heavy Bombardment event some 3.9 billion
years ago - 700 million years after the Sun's
birth. I think that that date, combined
with an approximate mass of, say, 10 Jupiter
masses, for the proposed companion might provide
some useful data points for future modelling of
the development of the solar system.
Written by Andy Lloyd, 18th January 2013
Fomalhaut B in 2000 Year Orbit
Our solar system contains two
asteroid belts - the 'warm' on located between
Mars and Jupiter, and a second 'cold' one beyond
Neptune, known as the Kuiper Belt. Well,
it turns out that other stars - Fomalhaut and
Vega - also have these two distinct asteroid
belts. Scientists speculate about whether
their planetary systems might be similar to our
own, containing multiple planets of varying
sizes. Additionally, Fomalhaut has its
very own 'Planet X'-type body (Fomalhaut B), in
that as it has a planet in a highly elliptical
orbit that lasts about 2000 years:
"This false-color
composite image (above), taken with the Hubble
Space Telescope, reveals the orbital motion of
the planet Fomalhaut b. Based on these
observations, astronomers calculated that the
planet is in a 2,000-year-long, highly
elliptical orbit. The planet will appear to
cross a vast belt of debris around the star
roughly 20 years from now. If the planet's orbit
lies in the same plane with the belt, icy and
rocky debris in the belt could crash into the
planet's atmosphere and produce various
phenomena. The black circle at the center of the
image blocks out the light from the bright star,
allowing reflected light from the belt and
planet to be photographed. The Hubble images
were taken with the Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph in 2010 and 2012. Credit: NASA,
ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California,
Berkeley and SETI Institute)" (1)
The planetary and
asteroid systems around our Sun may be
commonplace. Can the same be said for
additional planets in wide, elliptical orbits?
Andy Lloyd, 9th
January 2013
Photosynthesis in Dark Star
system
This website has been advocating the presence of a
sub-brown dwarf in the outer reaches of the solar system for many years.
One of the ideas that excited my interest in a massive Planet X object is the
potential for life to exist on one of its moons. It's a simple proposition
really - the moon is warmed by the heat from the sub-brown dwarf, as well as the
stresses created by the moon's proximity to the hot gas giant it orbits around.
The warmth would allow liquid water and an atmosphere around a substantial moon,
and then the potential for life - right here in our own solar system, way beyond
Pluto.
But what kind of life are we talking about?
Scientists have a way of down-playing the potential for any kind of complex life
in the solar system, mostly due to the evident lack of a supportive environment,
like that on Earth. Even if a Dark Star was able to provide enough heat on
its moon for an atmosphere and liquid water, how would vegetation emerge without
strong light, like that from the Sun? Scientists have discovered here on
Earth that plants don't necessarily need a lot of the Sun's light to flourish -
in some cases, very little. But that's not the same as saying that
vegetation might thrive in a Dark Star system.
Now, NASA are wondering out loud about what plant
lie might look like on alien worlds - where the light from the parent star is
different to that of our Sun, and the atmosphere contains different gases,
creating a different set of conditions for the light that eventually lands on
potential plant-life. For my theory, their conclusions are very exciting.
Far from dismissing the potential for photosynthesis to occur in an environment
where infra-red is the dominant light landing on the habitable moon, NASA appear
to endorse the possibility:
"Each planet will have
different dominant colors for photosynthesis, based on the planet’s atmosphere
where the most light reaches the planet’s surface. The dominant photosynthesis
might even be in the infrared." (1)
"Light of any color from deep
violet through the near-infrared could power photosynthesis. Around stars hotter
and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look
green to yellow to red. Around cooler stars such as red dwarfs, planets receive
less visible light, so plants might try to absorb as much of it as possible,
making them look black." (2)
Of course, without visiting such worlds, we cannot
yet know for sure. But the potential for a sub-brown dwarf between here
and the nearest star, combined with this new enlightened thinking, presents
opportunities for the presence of complex life in the outer reaches of our own
solar system. If there's non-green vegetation growing freely in a hotbed
of reddish light and infra-red, then why could animal life not follow?
Andy Lloyd, 6th January 2013
1) Rob Gutro, Goddard Space Flight Center,
"NASA Predicts Non-Green Plants on Other Planets", 4th November 2007
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/spectrum_plants.html
with thanks to Mark
2) Nancy Y. Kiang "The Color of Planets on Other Worlds"
7th April 2008
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-color-of-plants-on-other-worlds
with thanks to Mark
Beyond 2012
As widely predicted, the world did not come to an
end on 21st December 2012. Yay. While I'm sure that many a
modern-day Mayan will be enjoying the festivities of welcoming in the 14th
Baktun, there will be many New Age folk wondering what happened. Just as
the end of the second millennium after the birth of Christ did not herald an
apocalypse, or even a technological meltdown, so did the turning of the Mayan
calendar not bring forth the fires of hell for humanity. This much we
know. What we still don't know is why the beginning of the Mayan calendar
was set over five millennia ago, long before the Mayan civilisation itself got
into its stride. What event in their own prehistory set forth that great
rolling stone of time that has now successfully completed its 13th revolution?
Perhaps we may never find out. But given the
lack of an obvious astronomical event to coincide with this year's winter
solstice, it does not appear to reflect a prediction of a return of anything,
certainly not Nibiru. Indeed, it has to be said that amalgamating the
Mayan calendar and the return of Nibiru was always problematic. After all,
the concept of Nibiru is to be found in the early writings of Mesopotamian
cultures, whereas the Mayans appear to have been a purely American civilisation,
untouched by the Old World. Only if they were influenced by a common
precursor could one really connect the two, and the evidence for that is scant
(although, controversially, it may actually exist).
More likely, then, the connection between Nibiru
and 2012 was one of 'common sense' - at least within an alternative, New Age
context. The connection brought together the ending of a long Age and the
return of a long-period planet, both of which might ring the alarm bells of
imminent destruction. It is clear why such a concept captured so many
people's imaginations. The problem was always the lack of any kind of
evidence underlying this connection, beyond reference to an ancient Celtic text
whose own provenance is, at best, questionable.
Has the hunt for Planet X been damaged by the 2012
connection over the course of the last decade? Undoubtedly - although that
should be balanced against the clear raising of awareness of the issue of a
rogue, returning planet among the general population who might never have heard
of Nibiru otherwise. Whether any might go on to ponder the merits of the
case for a significant undiscovered planet in the solar system remains to be
seen. I hope they do, because there is still a case to answer.
Andy Lloyd, 21st December 2012
Rocky Worlds can form around
Brown Dwarfs
Naysayers in the astronomical community who have
doubted that rocky planets like Earth and Mars can form around brown dwarfs have
been forced to reconsider. The minute building blocks of planets appear in
protoplanetary disks around normal suns, in the form of millimetre-sized grains
orbiting en masse around the fledgling star. They are then thought to
accrete together, coalescing into planets as the developing clumps take on
sufficient gravitational power to sweep up the matter around them. But
scientists were doubtful that the building blocks for this process could form
around much smaller 'stars', like brown dwarfs. But now a new study has
revealed a protoplanetary disk around a brown dwarf which resembles that of
regular stars (1).
""We were completely surprised
to find millimetre-sized grains in this thin little disc," said Luca Ricci of
the California Institute of Technology, USA, who led a team of astronomers based
in the United States, Europe and Chile. "Solid grains of that size shouldn't be
able to form in the cold outer regions of a disc around a brown dwarf, but it
appears that they do. We can't be sure if a whole rocky planet could develop
there, or already has, but we're seeing the first steps, so we're going to have
to change our assumptions about conditions required for solids to grow," he
said.
"In the near future, the
completed ALMA telescope will be powerful enough to make detailed images of the
discs around Rho-Oph 102 and other objects. Ricci explained, "We will soon be
able to not only detect the presence of small particles in discs, but to map how
they are spread across the circumstellar disc and how they interact with the gas
that we've also detected in the disc. This will help us better understand how
planets come to be.""
(2)
For me, this is an exciting prospect, offering us
the first real glimpse of how planets might form around dwarf stars like brown
dwarfs, and perhaps in time even smaller objects, like sub-brown dwarfs.
This might then provide insight into how a binary object orbiting the Sun could
have developed its own rocky planet system at such a great distance from the
heat of the Sun itself.
Written by Andy Lloyd, 1st December 2012
1) L. Ricci, L. Testi, A. Natta, A. Scholz
and I. De Gregorio-Monsalvo. ALMA OBSERVATIONS OF ρ-OPH 102: GRAIN GROWTH AND
MOLECULAR GAS IN THE DISK AROUND A YOUNG BROWN DWARF. Astrophysical Journal
Letters, 2012 (in press)
2) European Southern Observatory - ESO
(2012, November 30). Even brown dwarfs may grow rocky planets: Sizing up grains
of cosmic dust around failed star. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 30, 2012,
from
http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/11/121130095118.htm
with thanks to Scott and Lee
Sun's Sibling Tilted the
Earth's Orbit
Anomalies in the orbits of the planets, including
Earth, have been one of the main arguments for a second sub-stellar body in the
solar system. Potentially helpful to these arguments is the paper just
published by astronomer Konstantin Batygin,
of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts
(1) which proposes that companion stars might be responsible for the way
planetary orbits are often titled away from the stellar equator. In the
Sun's case, its planetary system is misaligned to its own plane of spin by
7 degrees.
Astronomers have been studying extra-solar
planetary systems containing Hot Jupiters, and it was initially thought when
these strange planets were first discovered that their migration patterns caused
the entire planetary systems they moved through to tilt. But that argument
has become more complicated by the discovery of even weirder Hot Jupiters, which
themselves exhibit tilted and even retrograde orbits (2). Something else
is evidently causing these remarkable tilts. And given that the Sun's own
system is also tipped, then that mechanism has repercussions for our own system
(3).
The new theory recently offered brings to bear the
gravitational influence of sibling stars born alongside the star in question. As
stars are often born in clusters, the proximity of a nearby star in the cluster
can cause the tilting of a star's fledgling planetary system.
""Misaligned orbits are
actually a natural outcome of disk migration—once you take into account the fact
that planetary systems are usually born in multistellar environments," [Batygin]
says, noting that many stars have stellar companions..."I think somewhere in the
Milky Way, there's a star that's responsible for tilting us." He suspects the
sun once had a companion star that tipped the solar nebula by 7°, then fled the
scene after the planets arose." (4)
Once again, we are confronted with the need for a
massive companion combined with the lack of companion itself. While it
remains quite plausible that a companion star has indeed moved away from the Sun
long ago, it is also surely possible that the same effect might have been
achieved through the action of a sub-stellar companion, like a sub-brown dwarf.
Indeed, the very notion that Hot Jupiters might have had sufficient influence to
have tipped distant planetary systems lends credibility to such an idea.
When we consider clusters of stars forming
together, we also have to allow for many of those stars being dwarf stars, right
down to just a few Jupiter masses. Therefore, the tipped orbits of the
planets around the Sun might also have been caused by a rogue brown dwarf
object. And, given how difficult these things are to detect, its possible
that the fellow responsible is still hanging around out there...
Andy Lloyd, 18th November 2012
1) Konstantin Batygin "A primordial origin for
misalignments between stellar spin axes and planetary orbits" 15th November 2012
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11560.html
2) Daily Mail, "Backwards galaxy: First planet found that orbits in opposite
direction to its star", 14th August 2009,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1206148/Backwards-galaxy-First-planet-orbits-opposite-direction-star.html
This
website has argued for years that the evidence in the solar system increasingly
points to a migrating Earth scenario. It seems, on the face of it, to be a
rather far-fetched idea. As with so many things, we take the Earth's
stability for granted, when in fact its history is pock-marked with catastrophe
and monumental change. We assume that the Earth was formed at the same
distance from the Sun and has stayed there ever since. But why should that
be?
Further
grist for this particular mill is now provided by recent studies of moon rocks
which, when combined with the newest theories of Moon formation, lead the
scientists in exactly the same direction. Here's the quote from New
Scientist: 
One
of the themes I took up in my novel "The
Followers of Horus" was the habitability of
a moon orbiting a sub-brown dwarf, and how this
might work in practice. The moon would have to
be very close to the primary body to sit within its
habitability zone - as Earth (just about) does with
respect to the Sun - and the likely outcome of this
is that the moon would be in a tidally-locked orbit.
Our own Moon is tidally locked, meaning that it
spins on its axis at exactly the same rate as it
orbits about the Earth, with the result that it
always shows the same face to us. Similarly, a
habitable moon orbiting a Dark Star deep in our
solar system would always show the same face towards
the failed star, meaning that one side of the planet
would be warm, the other much colder.
Some
remarkable detective work by astronomer Kevin Luhman of Penn State
