The missing Planet

Anyone ever wonder if the asteroid belt is actualy a destroyed planet between Mars and Jupiter?

www.solstation.com...

I mean could billions of years ago or whatever however long it was could there have been a planet that held that orbit and it was shattered by some unknown force? Perhaps a rogue comet or some other large asteroid? It just seems like a lot of debris to be just a coincedence of nature.

Other questions to concider are

What did that do to the gravitational constant of this area of space? Could that event have moved our planet enough to make it perfect for life? Perhaps it also moved Mars to the point where it could no longer sustain life.

Just an idea probably thought of before. probably proven somewhere.

From what I understand, the asteroid belt is made up of too little material to be a shattered planet. Also, importantly, I think that the composition of the belt is more in keeping with it being remnants of the pre-planetary disc of the solar system, than an accreted and then smashed planet.

Apparently, when people were theorizing about the solar system, they thought that the belt might've been a planet, and named the hypothetical planet Phaeton
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 25-11-2006 by Nygdan]

Hey thanks for the link, That explained a lot. However every year there is a great metior shower that rains small debris from this belt down on Earth. Wouldent you have to subtract this amount from the original total? I mean how many metric tons of debris gets pulled into and away from that orbit every year for how long? Eventualy you got enough mass for a small planet right?

I kinda like that rouge planet theory from 6000 years ago kinda creepy

There's no way there was a planet there 6 thousand years ago. Having something of tremedous size smash into it and obliterate it would, at the very least, leave some sort of evidence on earth.

As far as the meteor shower material, there's just not enough to account for it. That much material can't have been dumped onto earth throughout its history, the earth'd have to be twice as big as it is, to have taken up 99 parts out of a hundred of the Phaeton planet.

The asteroid belt is composed of "leftovers" and is formed as a result of the interacting gravity of the sun and Jupiter. Lagrange points rock.

Your all probably right and its not just a smashed up planet. I just thought that it was currious seing as its a ring and if it was a protoplanet crumbled up by the gravitational forces of Mars and Jupiter that could mean it was a planet at some point. While most metiorites disinegrate in our atmosphere. Some hit the moon some hit Mars some may get knocked the other direction and hit Jupiter. Maybe. Maybe thats where the missing pieces of the puzzle are there debris on Mars the Moon and Jupiter. Perhaps maybe.

I think Mercury is the most telling planet... because of its slower rotation, 1 day equalling 59.65 of our own, there is catastrophic destruction on one half and the other side is quite prestine. Therefore it shows that over a couple of week period in there it got the crap bombarded out of it... Wonder what happened there hmmm? Perhaps a large amount of the destroyed material was pulled into the sun, and it just happened to be passing where Mercury were between the two, and viola' the "what happened to the extra material scenario" answered somewhat logically, but making vast assupmtions I'm aware.

There's plenty of gen on this thread...
Have a look-see here for some interesting posts!!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by MasterJedi
I think Mercury is the most telling planet... there is catastrophic destruction on one half and the other side is quite prestine.

How do you know that? Last I checked, we've only seen roughly 47% of Mercury's surface in images... And MESSENGER is no where near photo op range.

Anyway, Nygdan and apc are on the right track here. Even over the billions of years, and accounting for what hit Sol, Luna, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, anything else, and the left overs, you still don't end up with enough material to make anything sizeable.

Also, on a sidenote, the asteroid belt is nothing like how it is in movies or appears in the image of the original post. There is generally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of miles of distance between objects out there.

I think I can think of 63 reasons why the whole Jupiter's gravity would prevent the formation of a planet in the location of the asteroid belt theory doesnt hold water.

those reasons are:

1. Metis
2. Adrastea
3. Amalthea
4. Thebe
5. Io
6. Europa
7. Ganymede
8. Callisto
9. Themisto
10. Leda
11. Himalia
12. Lysithea
13. Elara
14. S/2000 J11
15. Iocaste
16. Praxidike
17. Harpalyke
18. Ananke
19. Isonoe
20. Erinome
21. Taygete
22. Chaldene
23. Carme
24. Pasiphae
25. S/2002 J1
26. Kalyke
27. Megaclite
28. Sinope
29. Callirrhoe
30. Euporie
31. Kale
32. Orthosie
33. Thyone
34. Euanthe
35. Hermippe
36. Pasithee
37. Eurydome
38. Aitne
39. Sponde
40. Autonoe
41. S/2003 J1
42. S/2003 J2
43. S/2003 J3
44. S/2003 J4
45. S/2003 J5
46. S/2003 J6
47. S/2003 J7
48. S/2003 J8
49. S/2003 J9
50. S/2003 J10
51. S/2003 J11
52. S/2003 J12
53. S/2003 J13
54. S/2003 J14
55. S/2003 J15
56. S/2003 J16
57. S/2003 J17
58. S/2003 J18
59. S/2003 J19
60. S/2003 J20
61. S/2003 J21
62. S/2003 J22
63. S/2003 J23

Source: solarsystem.nasa.gov...

So if Jupiter's gravity destroyed the planet that used to orbit the path of the asteroid belt how come it can suport its own system?
Just a thought.

[edit on 26-11-2006 by whatukno]

Then theres this theory. Now I am half asleap so I just put in random numbers but this is what happend when I pluged them into this program

Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 1234.00 km = 766.31 miles
Projectile Diameter: 3218680000000.00 m = 10557270400000.00 ft = 1998800280.00 miles
Projectile Density: 123456789 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 123456.00 km/s = 76666.18 miles/s (Your chosen velocity is higher than the maximum for an object orbiting the sun)
Impact Angle: 90 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: -NaN x 10-NaN Joules = 3.92 x 1045 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size is longer than the Earth's age.
Such impacts could only occur during the accumulation of the Earth, between 4.5 and 4 billion years ago.

Major Global Changes:
The Earth is completely disrupted by the impact and its debris forms a new asteroid belt orbiting the sun between Venus and Mars.

www.lpl.arizona.edu...

Sure most impacts don't hit square onto a planet but they are glancing blows, but what would happen if a rogue planetoid smashed into planet X kinda like a when you play billiards. Except your using a shotgun instead of a pool cue.

I think I can think of 63 reasons why the whole Jupiter's gravity would prevent the formation of a planet in the location of the asteroid belt theory doesnt hold water.

The "Jupiter's gravity prevented the formation of a planet in the asteroid belt" theory DOES make a lot of sense.

Jupiter would have perturbed objects in this region every time that it was "overtaken" in its orbit. This would have forced the objects in this region to develop a huge variety of orbital eccentricities and inclinations, which in turn would have resulted in higher impact velocities when collisions occurred. Therefore, instead of accreting (joining together to form a much larger object), they would have shattered into hundreds of smaller pieces, each of which would have been blasted away from the impact location.

As for Jupiter's moons, it's true that most of these are classed as "captured asteroids". Nevertheless, they are almost certainly survivors of the accretion phase of planet formation in the early Solar System, at a time when Jupiter was still surrounded by considerable amounts of gas and dust. This "accretion disk" would have had a braking effect on any objects that approached the planet, resulting in them eventually being captured.


[edit on 27-11-2006 by Mogget]

How do you destroyed a planet in such a way that the debris is evenly distributed around the plane of orbit and many of the larger remnants end up spherical?

Wouldn't the materials remain in the same region of space and eventual coalesce into a new -planet? As - according to current thinking - happened when the Earth was hit in the early days of the solar system.

Originally posted by whatukno
Hey thanks for the link, That explained a lot. However every year there is a great metior shower that rains small debris from this belt down on Earth.

Actually, there's bunches of meteor showers, many of which are spectacular. But none of the showers come from the asteroid belt. Many of them are instead from comets that have broken up.

I kinda like that rouge planet theory from 6000 years ago kinda creepy

But not supported. Folks were watching the sky back then, and some groups were literate enough to write about what they saw. No explosions, etc (though they did record the Crab Nebula explosion and at least one lunar impact where something large hit the moon.)

there was a planet that was still in its development between jupiter and mars during the early days of the solarsystem.But as jupiter grew in mass and its gravitational pull well exceeded the other planets its gravitational pull effected this planet and as millions of years went by,this planet slowly split into pieces and over the billions of years turned into an atstroid field.Some scientists have calculated and combined a rough diametre size of this planet.Apparently if this planet had existed to this day,it would be slightly larger than earth.

[edit on 2-12-2006 by southern_Guardian]

i think it was our home planet and we settled here in hiding because it was destroyed by the empire and they are still hunting for us?

It's very possible for the astrial belt to be a original planet. Some peices of the planet could of formed saturns rings, many others could of collided with other planets, and even parts of it can leave our solar system. If you add it all up. It is very possible. Maybe when the planet was distroyed. Parts of it landed on earth and distroyed the dinosaurs.

Plus, if you look at ancient mythology, the ancients said their was a mostly ocean planet between mars and jupiter that is distroyed. How it was distroy, I'm not going to go into that, but it is very possible.

I recall saying this a bit ago... I'm not claiming to be omnipotent, but I do know what I'm talking about here.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Anyway, Nygdan and apc are on the right track here. Even over the billions of years, and accounting for what hit Sol, Luna, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, anything else, and the left overs, you still don't end up with enough material to make anything sizeable.

Even if you took all of that material, as it were billions of years ago, you would still end up with a body with less mass than Luna. On top of that, the amount of energy required to break up a planet and leave the remains so finely distributed is so outragously tumultuous that it would be impossible.