Some Information On Our Asteroid Belt

Originally posted by iforget
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

do you really have to impact the asteroid to perturb its orbit of the sun?

No. There are a couple of other ways an asteroid can have it's orbit disturbed:

Gravity from another body, say like Jupiter can do that if the asteroid and Jupiter get too close. It can have several affects on the asteroid (capture of it. Slow it down so that it's pulled into a closer orbit around the sun).

Then there is the Poynting-Robertson Effect:

The Poynting–Robertson effect, also known as Poynting–Robertson drag, named after John Henry Poynting and Howard Percy Robertson, is a process by which solar radiation causes a dust grain in the Solar System to slowly spiral into the Sun. The drag is essentially a component of radiation pressure tangential to the grain's motion.

reply to post by paradiselost333


Yeah, people at times remember/take from things what they want ... and deep impact was easily forgotten by most.

I think part of the problem with 'electric universe' theory is the name itself. Electro-magnetic Plasma universe or something like that would be much more fitting.

When thinking about the Plasma Electro-Magnetic Universe theory; a very old saying comes to mind ... 'As above, so below'.

We see this scaling on everything, from the miniscule electron microscope level, to the vastness in space.


To iterate on some of what I said earlier in the thread with the preface that this is all hypothetical free thought; Pluto has a quite irregular orbit with its twin. Ceres is quite 'regular' in its initial appearance to us. There are, as the diagram presented shows, at least 3 large pockets orbiting with Jupiter. Jupiter, with its sheer mass, would have sweeped up a ton of stuff in its way that didn't enter an 'orbit'. We have a ton of moons with the gas giants (over 100). What does liquid take the form of in space? a sphere. It could be possible that some of them are the leftovers from a catastrophe, and your evidence of 'why so little' stares us in the face every day.

Add to the fact it is estimated 100-300 metric tons a day join the Earth alone. Now add the plausibility that some % of that amount collects on the moon as well as the other planets, moons, and our star ... and you are talking a tons (/rolleyes) of material accumulation daily. The source? Unknown ... but I can't rule out atomized dust from a destroyed planet, just like I don't rule out cosmic dust traveling the vastness of space, galactic dust as we travel through space, and leftover stuff within our own star's influence.

The ratio thing I referred to before was the number Phi (not to be confused with Pi, which can be related to each other through trigonometric functions). It rather accurately places approximate distances of planets around the sun, moons/rings (and their ring patterns) around the planets, and related to the universe itself. I recall some of this stuff from threads past I've lost ... but was quite interesting. With us discovering the influence of our sun to be much greater reaching than we once thought, there lies possibilities of discoveries much further out ... and this number provides the ratio as where we might find success in searching. It also shows that there should be a planet between Mars and Jupiter, but that spot is 'skipped'.

I enjoy speculation within this idea as well ... we can get really imaginative, and consider if Mimas really is a defunct death star, now covered in dust; though that is just because a lot of us watched Star Wars at some point in our life. Are we the remnants of a past civilization that destroyed itself/planet, and that is why a lot of cultures have either their ancestors descending from the sky or cultures have visitors from the sky in their myths across the world? But to really dive into all that gets too far off topic of the asteroid belt itself to indulge in fantasy and distant possibilities.

Could the asteroid belt be just as is generally accepted today? Sure. A bit boring and unimaginative as well. It is also based on our limited knowledge and limited thinking when it comes to things greater in size and time than is easy even for the most intelligent of us to comprehend, let alone prove. We barely know anything about our own oceans or much about our past (new discoveries are rewriting history constantly). How can we then look to the stars, or even our own backyard (solar system), and claim that we have a good grasp on the way it all happened.

Our information is so limited, our slice of time and knowledge is minimal ... It is as if we've been in a tiny room for our existence, we then peer though a small window and try to judge the rest of the world, and its past, based on the observations we can see out of this tiny view, over a minute (mahy-noot) amount of time. We are very self-important and arrogant as a species. Our perspective compared to what even we believe to be the time scale is infinitesimal.

Because of these things, I always keep an open mind, and I hope others do as well. Science can get a lot right; but has also gotten a lot wrong over the centuries. Who is to say we have all the answers now? Our technology? People of the past championed their technology and supreme knowledge as well. They also had great minds ... but even the greatest minds, no matter how hard they try, usually at some point stall in their ability to break out of their indoctrination and paradigm given to them by their society and experiences.

We today, because of light pollution, are even more disconnected from understanding space. It is very disheartening ... for the sky itself is so beautiful at night, and gives perspective.

reply to post by FreeThinkerIdealist


The laws of gravity are the most basic there are, and they apply throughout the whole universe. Gravity means that in a proto-planetary disc, bits of dust will accrete into bigger lumps, eventually leading to formation of asteroids, comets and planets. It also means that in the interstellar space (i.e. not near the influence of a compact massive body like a star) the dust will remain at molecular level, and at very low density. So I think it's pretty safe to say that the asteroids and other small bodies in our Solar System formed out of the same disc of material as the planets. (that's not counting the possibility of a "visitor" from a different system)

You people keep talking about an exploded planet, but keep forgetting that the planet had to form out of some material likewise. So if planets can form out of the material in a proto-planetary disc, why can't asteroids? Considering that some chunks of material didn't have a chance to accrete into planets, and considering all the collisions between stuff in the early Solar System, it's no big surprise that there's lots of dust / pebbles / boulders / asteroids out there still orbiting the Sun and impacting our planet.

Saying that we still know very little about the universe and how it works is not an excuse to embrace such fringe theories like EU, which discards most of modern science in favour of extending lab experiments with plasma to the cosmic scale.

reply to post by wildespace


I see no issue with balls of dust lumping together But rocks? That is formed by heat and pressure. I haven't seen a valid reason for rocks to be orbiting. Only dust. Or, rather, accreted dust.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by ouvertaverite
thanks, erik, i also learned a great deal about the true nature of the 'belt' and its implications from your post.

you express yourself fairly well, though your writing (as with the vast majority's) would require editing in a more formal setting. anyway, not here to grammar naziize, but i will share one observation from the beginning of your fascinating post which will also convey some useful info on a couplr of common misconceptions:

the asteroid belt does not 'lay' between mars and jupiter; it does, however, 'lie' between them.

lay is a transitive verb, a fancy way of saying that it has an object, while lie (in the reclining sense) is intransitive, no object implied.

i lie in bed every morning 'til ten. i lay (past tense) there yesterday until the phone rang. i have lain (past participle) in bed sometimes 'til noon. lie, lay lain

he lays the newspaper on the table every morning. the hen laid two eggs in three days. we have laid the money aside every month for years now. lay (something somewhere), laid, laid (past and past participle the same)

i hope this little understood verbal distiction will also be useful to some throughout life.

again, thanks for informing us!

Thanks for the grammar lesson.

Clear writing is important to ensure proper communication. However, grammar is not my forte and my 2nd ex-wife was an editor.

I try to use "your" in place of "you're" every once in a while to drive people up the wall.

it's all good. it doesn't take great usage to get your points across, and your communication skill is way more than adequate. i just shared that tidbit because it's so commonly misconstrued, and can be corrected for life fairly easily. keep doing what you're doing!

it's also amazing how different the asteroid belt is from most everyone's preconceptions--great to learn so much so succinctly.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by wildespace

 

But rocks? That is formed by heat and pressure.

Gravity provides the pressure, and the pressure heats things up.

If asteroids can't form out of dust, then how can the planets? I'll consider the exploding planet scenario if you tell me where the planet came from.

reply to post by SQUEALER


Not really trying to start a pissing match here, but if man set off all his nukes in one spot 1000 over, it would not even amount to the power of a 1 mile wide meteor hitting the earth.

Our weapons are wimpy.

And even if the planet was somhow made to "go into melt down", it would once again cool, and solidify.

Just because rock melts doesn't make it disapear somehow.

To the OP.

Very good thread, I commend your work, and your insights.

I have had this same discussion a couple of times now on here, and some people really do think it is a solid wall of asteroids, instead of a very widely spaced collection of debris.

Your discription of quaters on a table vs spread across a city is a very nice touch, it helps to make a visual representation for those who work better with such things, than with the hard numbers.

Star and flag op, quite well done sir!

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Rock is formed through gravitation over time, no heat is required.

How do you think all the layers of rock formed in the ground?

It is quite simple really.

I can lay down dust of just about anytype of substance, and wait, and it will condense into rock.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by wildespace

 

I see no issue with balls of dust lumping together But rocks? That is formed by heat and pressure. I haven't seen a valid reason for rocks to be orbiting. Only dust. Or, rather, accreted dust.

I know it can be a bit mind boggling, but that's exactly what happens, over a equally mind boggling amount of time.

Take the sun for instance. It started out as nothing more than dust and hydrogen molecules lumping together. So much finally built up that the tremendous pressure started that hydrogen to fuse together.

The raw material, dust as you say, lumps together attracting even more of that material. Get enough material together and the pressure at it's center builds up. As it builds up, it causes heat. A lot of it. That heat turns the material molten, which the cold of space helps solidify again, only now instead of "dust" it's a rock.

Snow is a great analogy of this. Think of snow flakes, so soft and light drifting down. Pack enough of them together and you have a snow ball. That's a bit harder than each individual snow flake, and if you get hit with one, you know it's a lot harder.
Now take it a step further: Ice. When snow get's packed hard enough, the pressure turns it into ice.

Antarctica ice cores are a great example of that. All that ice is snow that's been compressed and put under pressure. It becomes solid ice.

As wildspace pointed out: there is no reason why asteroids could not form out of the material that formed the planets in our solar system.

"Dust" can form and turn into very large asteroids given enough material and time.

Nice repeat of gathered information. But, the information runs into problems. One, from data to date none of the planetary systems seem to have anything resembling an Asteroid Belt. Two, Jupiter is big and massive, but the asteroids are far enough sun-ward, to avoid. The "asteroids" that struck Jupiter are from orbital debris in Jupiter's orbit, not per se the "Asteroid Belt." Third, the "asteroids" are tightly clustered for a formation nearly four billion years ago. Unlike the rings of Saturn and the other gas giants, there are no shepherd moons to keep everything together.
Lastly, I stick to Arthur Clarke's laws. If an eminent scientist says something is impossible, it is probably possible. I am old enough, and silly enough to remember high school biology lessons. To wit: nothing can live above about 106 degrees. Somebody forget to inform the thermal loving extreme that they weren't suppose to exist. Fifty years has buried many an absolute statement in science. Coming up fast is the Aquatic Ape hypothesis. Since it goes a long way to explain why we are the "naked ape," without being silly. Like name any large, mammal predator or scavenger that has shed its fur coat to run fast and overtake prey. The savannah idea of ape development doesn't fit all the facts. Find a mammal that would not remain near a ready source of good food, especially one that is easy to get like mussels, clams, oysters, and tidal pool fish.
Back to asteroids. Failed garbage doesn't pass the smell test. Asteroids as merely debris from the formation of the Solar System is such garbage. Besides, anyone remember Bode's Law, the planets all form in this beautiful arrangement of size and place. Ask the people finding planets about how universal Bode's Law is among the known planetary systems. Somewhere between Velikovsky and the hallowed halls of absolute theory lies the truth and facts.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by wildespace

 

I see no issue with balls of dust lumping together But rocks? That is formed by heat and pressure. I haven't seen a valid reason for rocks to be orbiting. Only dust. Or, rather, accreted dust.

I know it can be a bit mind boggling, but that's exactly what happens, over a equally mind boggling amount of time.
...
The raw material, dust as you say, lumps together attracting even more of that material. Get enough material together and the pressure at it's center builds up.

I thought the point he was trying to make is that some of the smaller rocks don't seem to have "enough material" as you put it, for this process to happen. Whether that's the point he was trying to make or not, it seems like it would be a good one, since some asteroids appear to be rubble piles:

www.berkeley.edu...

"Due to mutual gravitation, both components took a shape very close to the pure hydrostatic shape, the Roche ellipsoid, as if the asteroid was a fluid," Marchis said. "This result indicates that the internal strength in the components must be low, so possibly a rubble pile structure." They were able to calculate the density as 1.25 grams per cubic centimeter (water is one gram per cubic centimeter), which, if one assumes that the rock component is carbonaceous chondrite, means the asteroid pair is 30 percent empty space.

So when it's a "rubble pile", it appears there is insufficient material and heat generated to form solid rock, if it's 30 percent empty space.

In planets or even the largest asteroids, yes it's easy to see how the process you describe can happen, when there's "enough material".

Good thread by the way!

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by paradiselost333
I have seen very compelling evidence that there was a planet....that exploded!
Mars shows the scars from that event. Not here to argue but just to state there are allot of holes in the theory "well the most popular and excepted theory" you have put forth. I am an electric universe advocate which makes allot more sense than the current story< cause it is just a theory not fact. both theories that is..
EXPLODING PLANET and a great video on the subject..a must see
Thunderbolts of The Gods

edit on 26-5-2013 by paradiselost333 because: (no reason given)

I don't have a problem if someone wants to favor one theory over another. They are theories because they have not met the criteria to be fact through the scientific method.

Theories have different levels of supporting evidence. The more supporting evidence one theory has, the more it becomes "favored" among scientist.
For example the asteroid belt has more supporting evidence that it formed as individual asteroids, than the theory of a planet that was broken up (by collision, etc).

That is the fun thing about theories. One day someone could find evidence that supports the idea of the asteroid belt having come from a single planet breaking up, and the supporting evidence is much stronger than the current accepted theory. That theory would fall from favor and the single planet theory would become the popular, most accepted one.

Or a completely new theory could emerge.

What does bug me is when someone presents something that is theory as fact.

edit on 26-5-2013 by eriktheawful because: (no reason given)

Thanks for a great thread on a subject dear to my heart. It may be true that you can't miss what you never had, but I still feel badly for all the kids growing up in urban areas that rob them of the magic of the night sky through light pollution. As a farm kid, I grew up watching the sky every chance I got. Getting to the desert out West and doing an over-nighter miles from anywhere is top five in my bucket list.

Love your take on the asteroid belt... Wonder what the future holds for our visit to Pluto. Back when it was launched we had no idea that it had so much going on for a minor planet. What is the moon count up to now, 6 or 7?

reply to post by CornShucker


Last count was 5.

That may go up once New Horizons gets there.

reply to post by eriktheawful


Thank you Eric, for all your work.
Questions: what is the size threshold of something that gets called an asteroid and what is the size threshold of objects we can detect?
You see where I'm going with this; car sized, fist sized and grain of sand sized bodies might not classify as asteroids or even be detectable with current technology but could still make navigation complicated. In that vast space they (collectively) could even account for the missing mass needed to make up a whole planet.
I'm also skeptical about the different composition of asteroids meaning that they were not once part of the same body. Earth's crust, mantle and core are all made of different substances. Heavy stuff at the bottom; light stuff on top. Of course the idea that it is an uncoalesced "stellar ring" like Saturn's planetary rings is also believable.
Anyway, thanks for the information.

reply to post by KDB955


Anything smaller than 10 meters is considered a "Meteoroid" by the International Astronomical Union.

Anything large enough to shape itself into a sphere through gravitation, orbits the sun on it's own, that is not a comet, and around Pluto sized is considered a "Dwarf Planet" by the IAU.

Moons or Satellites orbit planets that orbit the sun.

That leaves everything else defined as "Asteroid", heh. I know. Kind of vague:

The term "asteroid" is ill-defined. It never had a formal definition, with the broader term minor planet being preferred by the International Astronomical Union from 1853 on. In 2006, the term "small Solar System body" was introduced to cover both most minor planets and comets.[19] Other languages prefer "planetoid" (Greek for "planet-like"), and this term is occasionally used in English for larger minor planets such as the dwarf planets. The word "planetesimal" has a similar meaning, but refers specifically to the small building blocks of the planets that existed when the Solar System was forming. The term "planetule" was coined by the geologist William Daniel Conybeare to describe minor planets,[20] but is not in common use. The three largest objects in the asteroid belt, Ceres, 2 Pallas, and 4 Vesta, grew to the stage of protoplanets. Ceres has been classified as a dwarf planet, the only one in the inner Solar System.

Source

So, basically anything bigger than a semi-truck, but not so big to where it forms itself into sphere, and is also not a comet, is considered a Asteroid. Anything smaller than the semi-truck is actually considered a "meteoroid", however you'll find that the media will call it a "Asteroid" in any case.

As for the compositions of asteroids:

Yes, the Earth is made up of many elements. And if one were to break the Earth up, certainly small parts of it would have different amounts of those elements in them.
However, take a look at the moon. One reason that the Collision Hypothesis holds in favor is because the chemical make up of the moon in many ways is so close to that of the Earth.

When we find a meteorite here on Earth, as you may have seen, some of them originated from Mars and are known as Martian Meteorites. They know this because the make up of those meteorites matches Mars.

Iridium is found much more abundantly in asteroids than here on Earth. Why?
Well from what we understand, Earth does have a lot of iridium.......it's mostly down towards the core of our planet because during planet formation this heavier element sank closer to the core while our planet was still molten.

If that holds true, then it would mean that the asteroids in the asteroid belt would have uneven amounts of iridium in them, if they were fragments from a planet that formed, as parts left over from that planet would be rich in iridium while other asteroids iridium would be very scarce, just like here on Earth.

But that's not the case. Those asteroids are rich in iridium.....which suggests that they were never part of a large planetary body where that iridium would have sank down, and left parts iridium starved.

My view on it anyways. I could most likely come up with other views on it. All part of the fun!

Inside the "asteroid belt" the planets are rocky, outside they are gaseous. That narrow band between the two zones is neither rocky, single bodies or diffuse gaseous giants.

Why don't gas giants coalesce into single rocky bodies like the inner planets?

Why that "void" between the two type of planets? My simpleton answer is that is the distance from the sun's gravity where neither can form. Just a void.

What do I know?

Originally posted by intrptr
What do I know?

Scientists don't seem to know either, since exoplanets have defied models created based on observations in our solar system:

news.nationalgeographic.com...

The more new planets we find, the less we seem to know about how planetary systems are born, according to a leading planet hunter.

It's a good area for scientific research, because we don't really have good answers, and computing power is finally catching up with what the complex models need to run simulations.

What we do know is that our solar system is not as typical as once thought.

I was just wondering, lets say there is this planet Nibiru or Planet X or whatever that planet is approaching our solar system and it comes near the Asteroid belt. What will it do to it? Like can it produce imbalance in the belt and make the rocks crash random planets?

reply to post by konig


Any large enough celestial body moving through the asteroid belt can have effects up the orbits of those asteroids (depending on where it where to come through, and the size of the object).

How it affects some of the asteroid's orbits and where they end up would be something that would have to be modeled with computers and of course observed by us to calculate their new orbits.

Would they crash into us or other planets? The answer to that again is "depends", as it would depend on what their new orbits are and how close they come to us or other planets.