Before I explain
the entirety of my theory I would like to give you (the reader), an
opportunity to guess at it. I will help by providing you with the key
piece of information that validates my theory. If you have faith in your
(personal) scientific methodology and are driven by curiosity, you
should be able to derive the theory all by yourself! This won't be easy,
but I feel that you should be given a chance to show off your
intellect.
All you have to do is take the information
that I give you, and use induction (going from the specific to the
general) to figure out the timeline of events that created the Solar
System we see today. You know that you can do this, and I have faith
that you can. Are you ready? The answer is . . . Saturn.
SATURN? Why Saturn? What the heck
does that have to do with the creation of the Solar System? How could
this information possibly lead to a theory of Solar System genesis?
In
order to address these questions, let me be a bit more specific. Saturn
has some interesting qualities - chief among them is the strange
hexagonal "standing wave" in the clouds of its north pole (it stays in
one place as the clouds rotate around it. It does look cool! Check out
the video loop on Wikipedia.com under Saturn). Talk about unusual! What
the heck could cause this to happen?
Conundrum 1: Saturn's northern clouds -- The clouds rotate around the pole but the hexagonal "ridges" remain.
In addition to the northern clouds,
another unusual feature of Saturn is its axial tilt. If you were
standing above Saturn's North Pole, you would see that the planet
rotates around a point that is not quite where you are standing (the
North Pole). This is called the axial tilt, as the planet is actually
"tilted" from the straight "up and down" position of the poles.
Conundrum 2: Saturn's axial tilt -- The planet rotates around its axis which does not go through the poles.
Saturn
has an axial tilt of 27 degrees, measured from the angle between the
rotation axis and the poles - which is quite similar to Earth's 23
degrees of tilt. This means that Saturn has seasons - somewhat like the
Earth.
Scientists believe that the Earth's axial tilt
was caused by an impact event (The Big Whack) - and this mechanism is
probably the best (only) way to create an axial tilt. If we applied this
idea to Saturn, there must have been an object that impacted Saturn
that caused it to tilt (makes sense). Saturn is a gas giant - it may not
even have a solid core, so what is the impact mechanism that made it
tilt?
One last thing. Saturn and Jupiter have a 2:1
orbital resonance. This means that for every orbit Saturn makes around
the Sun, Jupiter makes two. No other planets have this kind of
"symmetry" in their orbits. Most scientists take this to mean that
Saturn and Jupiter came close to each other - and after all the pushing
and pulling - they settled into these orbits. Saturn must have moved . .
.
It's my belief that there is only one answer that
addresses all the observations - and once you have it, you can apply
induction / regression to discover and hit upon all of my theory. Are
you up to the task?
Of course I didn't start there myself . . .
In
order to understand
The Rampson Theory of Solar System Genesis, you
need to understand some background information on how stars form and
die. This star making process is continuous i.e. it happened before,
it's happening now and it will happen in the future. Here is the basic
process:
How to make a star and then blow it up
In
order to make a star, you need start with a cloud of gas rich in
hydrogen. Each gas particle in the cloud has mass - and thus gravity, so
over time this gravity starts to pull the particles together. As this
process continues, the center of the gas cloud gets more and more dense.
Eventually the particles are as close as they can physically get (they
are touching each other) - but gravity continues to (try and) pull them
closer. This builds up pressure (and heat) until finally 2 particles are
squeezed together into one.
This is fusion - where 2
light-weight particles are forced together to create a single heavier
particle plus energy! These 2 particles are typically hydrogen-1 and the
heavier particle is helium-2. NOTE: atoms are defined by how many
protons they have in their nucleus (called atomic number, signified by
the dash and number at the end of the word). Hydrogen only has one
proton and is the lightest (in mass) of all elements. For comparison,
uranium-92 is very dense and 'heavy" and it has 92 protons per atom.
This fusion reaction is what makes stars shine.
This
fusion "burning" reaction creates "outward" pressure that counteracts
gravity. As long as the star is "shining", it will not "shrink" any
further. Stars happily burn (fuse) hydrogen for millions or billions of
years (our own Sun has been fusing for 4.7 Gy (billion years) - and is
only halfway though its hydrogen supply). But eventually the hydrogen
"runs out".
It's not exactly correct to say that a star
runs out of hydrogen-1, but the remaining hydrogen is not enough to
sustain the fusion reactions. When this fusion stops (or sputters), the
star's energy output drops. This energy (outward pressure) was
counteracting the gravitational "pull" keeping the particles from
getting squeezed even more. When this fusion energy level drops, the
star begins to contract as gravity overwhelms all. The star contracts
and the pressure (and temperature) goes up again. This continues until
fusion begins with this next lightest element (helium-2). The star now
starts to "burn" (fuse) helium-2 (with hydrogen-1) to create lithium-3
(and through the "triple-alpha-process" where three helium-2 atoms are
combined to create one carbon-6 atom).
Conundrum 3: The scarcity of beryllium-4 and boron-5
The
triple-alpha-process "skips over" these 2 "products" - so what process
does create them (actually fusing 2 helium-2 atoms to create a
beryllium-4 atom is possible but unstable, with the beryllium-4 atom
decaying soon afterward)?
This helium-2 fusion phase
doesn't last for millions of years - more like a hundred. When the
helium-2 runs out, gravity squeezes particles closer together and
pressure and temperature go up - and the next heavier particle gets
burned (fused). If the star's starting mass is high enough, this process
continues until you create nickel-28. Nickel has the highest "bonding
energy" - you cannot use fusion to make anything heavier (nickel
radioactively decays to iron-26). What you end up with, at the end of
this process is a star with (onion) "layers" of different material
(lighter on the outside to heavier near the core).
 |
| Figure 4 The onion-like layers of a massive, evolved star just prior to core collapse. (Not to scale.) |
Eventually gravity squeezes the core of the star into a material called
electron degenerate matter.
Degenerate matter
is matter which has such very high density that the dominant
contribution to its pressure rises from the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
The pressure maintained by a body of degenerate matter is called the
degeneracy pressure, and arises because the Pauli principle forbids the
constituent particles to occupy identical quantum states. Any attempt to
force them close enough together that they are not clearly separated by
position must place them in different energy levels. Therefore,
reducing the volume requires forcing many of the particles into
higher-energy quantum states. This requires additional compression
force, and is manifest as a resisting pressure. - Wikipedia
Suffice
to say that electron degenerate matter has atoms squeezed so close
together that electrons cannot jump between orbitals (they are "stuck").
Usually
when you increase temperature, particles tend to get more energetic
(like boiling water) - i.e. they start moving around, but when you
increase the temperature on electron degenerate matter - nothing
happens. The heat is trapped and cannot radiate out in any way. Over
time, this traps a tremendous amount of heat in the electron degenerate
matter.
The star continues to fuse more and more
"heavy" (massive) elements into electron degenerate matter, and
eventually fusion stops. If the star's core is not sufficiently massive
to collapse, the star will eject the gas "envelope" into what is called a
planetary nebula, and the core becomes a white dwarf star.
If
the star is sufficiently massive, then the core will eventually exceed
the Chandrasekhar limit (1.38 solar masses - The Sun = 1 solar mass), at
which point this (electron degeneracy pressure) mechanism
catastrophically fails. The forces holding atomic nuclei apart in the
innermost layer of the core suddenly give way, the core implodes due to
its own mass, and no further fusion process can ignite or prevent
collapse this time.
The core collapses in on itself
with velocities reaching 70,000 km/s (0.23c), resulting in a rapid
increase in temperature and density. Electrons and protons merge via
electron capture - producing neutrons. The inner core eventually reaches
(typically) 30 km in diameter and a density comparable to that of an atomic
nucleus - and further collapse is abruptly stopped by (nuclear) strong force
interactions and by (neutron) degeneracy pressure.
This
abrupt stop causes a shock wave that propagates outward from the core.
This shock wave then transfers energy (by a not well understood
process), to the outer layers of the star which then explode in a
supernova. When the progenitor star is below about 20 solar masses
(depending on the strength of the explosion and the amount of material
that falls back), the degenerate remnant of a core collapse is a neutron
star. Above this mass the remnant collapses to form a black hole.
 |
Figure 5 Within a massive, evolved star (a) the onion-layered shells
of elements undergo fusion, forming an iron core (b) that reaches
Chandrasekhar-mass and starts to collapse. The inner part of the core is
compressed into neutrons (c), causing infalling material to bounce (d)
and form an outward-propagating shock front (red). The shock starts to
stall (e), but it is re-invigorated by a process that may include
neutrino interaction. The surrounding material is blasted away (f),
leaving only a degenerate remnant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Core_collapse_scenario.png |
The remnant of a supernova explosion consists
of a compact object and a rapidly expanding shock wave of material. This
cloud of material sweeps up the surrounding interstellar medium during a
free expansion phase, which can last for up to two centuries. The wave
then gradually undergoes a period of adiabatic expansion, and will
slowly cool and mix with the surrounding interstellar medium over a
period of about 10,000 years.
In standard Astronomy,
the Big Bang produced hydrogen, helium, and traces of lithium, while all
heavier elements are synthesized in stars and supernovae. Supernovae
tend to enrich the surrounding interstellar medium with metals, which
for astronomers means all of the elements other than hydrogen and helium
(and is a different definition than that used in chemistry).
These injected elements ultimately
enrich the molecular clouds that are the sites of star formation. Thus,
each stellar generation has a slightly different composition, going from
an almost pure mixture of hydrogen and helium to a more metal-rich
composition. Supernovae are the dominant mechanism (but not the only
one) for distributing these heavier elements, which are formed in a star
during its period of nuclear fusion, throughout space. The different
abundances of elements in the material that forms a star have important
influences on the star's life, and may decisively influence the
possibility of having planets orbiting it.
The kinetic
energy of an expanding supernova remnant can trigger star formation due
to compression of nearby, dense molecular clouds in space. The increase
in turbulent pressure can also prevent star formation if the cloud is
unable to lose the excess energy.
Evidence from
daughter products of short-lived radioactive isotopes shows that a
nearby supernova helped determine the composition of the Solar System
4.5 billion years ago, and may even have triggered the formation of this
system. Supernova production of heavy elements over astronomic periods
of time ultimately made the chemistry of life on Earth possible.
NOTE: Most of the preceding information was taken from Wikipedia.
How the Universe came into being
Let me
introduce what I call the Current Scientific Belief (CSB). This acronym
represents the most current theories that the majority of the scientific
community believe are true (Conventional Wisdom?). This is what I will
use to "define" the base from which my theories will diverge.
The
CSB is that an infinitesimally small (and dense, and hot) "dot" of
matter exploded and created the Universe. This was called The Big Bang
and it happened around 13.7 Gya (billion years ago - depending on the
value of the Hubble Constant - which varies). The explosion created
hydrogen-1 and helium-2 (and some lithium-3) molecules in a huge gas
cloud - which quickly expanded and (~1 billion years later) cooled and
"condensed" into huge (Hypergiant) stars the size of galaxies
(Generation I stars). These stars exploded into supernovas (a couple of
billion years later ~11 Gya), leaving behind massive black holes and a
variety of elements (still mostly hydrogen-1 and helium-2) in a "gas".
The black holes captured this "gas" with their tremendous gravity. As
the gas was pulled toward the black hole it heated up and started
orbiting (moving around the black hole) faster and faster. This was the
genesis of galaxies.
This gas coalesced into stars - mostly blue giants. One of these was the progenitor of our Solar System.
9 Gya (billion years ago), this blue
giant (call it King) exploded in a supernova, spreading "star stuff"
(as Carl Sagan put it) - into a dust cloud called a protoplanetary disk
(also called a proplyd).
NOTE:
This "star stuff" actually consists of atoms/molecules of different
elements - such as iron and calcium, but most of it is hydrogen and
helium.
This type of supernova (a type II
core-collapse) always creates either a neutron star or a black hole -
depending on the starting mass of the star. Assuming that King was below
the threshold of mass to generate a black hole (i.e. less than 20 solar
masses - 20 Suns) - then there must have been a neutron star created
from the supernova of King (call it Spider). Most of these neutron stars
are "expelled" from the galaxy, as the force of a supernova can really
get a star moving! This is assumed to have happened for Spider.
The proplyd (aka dust cloud) eventually
"collapsed" i.e. gravity pulled the dust (molecules) closer and closer
together. As the proplyd collapsed, the dust started to orbit the center
and move faster and faster (this is like the spinning ice skater
pulling in their arms and moving faster). Eventually the dust in the
center coalesced into the Sun, and the rest of the dust coalesced into
planets. Viola, we now have the Solar System!
This
Solar System model should create planets that move faster in their orbit
the further you get to the Sun - which is exactly what we see today.
The speed (velocity) of the planet Mercury is about 50 km/s while the
velocity of Pluto is about 4500 km/s. The speed of the Sun's rotation is
about 700 km/h, which is (much) slower than theory predicts.
Conundrum 4: The Sun's angular momentum is too slow
The Sun should be moving (rotating) faster - but it doesn't.
Because
of the way a star forms ("onion") layers of different materials before
it supernovas, the lightest elements (near the outer edge of the star)
tend to "fly" out the furthest, while the heavy elements (near the
center) tend to not be blasted too far away. This means that you form
light element planets further out (like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune) while closer to the center you get "terrestrial" planets made
of heavy elements (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars).
Conundrum 5: Not a smooth mass distribution in the Solar System
The
Sun is made up of light elements - yet it is at the center of the Solar
System. The Kuiper Belt (of which Pluto is a member) is made up of
relatively heavy (massive) elements even though it is far away from the
center.
This means that this simple model doesn't
explain all of the features that we see in today's Solar System. So we
need to modify this . . .
