Modern Evidence for Exploded Planets

Two important lines of evidence that asteroids originated in an explosion are the explosion signatures (described later in this article), and the rms velocity among asteroids, which is as large as the laws of dynamics allow for stable orbits. In other words, the asteroid belt is certainly the residual of a larger population of bodies, many of which gravitationally escaped the solar system or collided with the Sun or planets, leaving behind only the bodies with the most stable orbits.

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Figure 1. Spacecraft views of an asteroid and a comet. Which is which?
Two important lines of evidence that meteoroids originated in an explosion are these: First, chondrules (melt droplets) in meteorites are known to have been formed in a sudden heating impulse, and some have reached temperatures right up to their vaporization temperature despite the fact that vaporization temperatures vary over the range 1350-1800° C, depending on composition [[1]], while other asteroids show exposure to a heavy neutron flux, sometimes with blackening and shock [[2]]. And secondly, the time meteoroids have been traveling in space exposed to cosmic rays is relatively short, typically millions of years. Evidence of multiple exposure-age patterns, as would happen from repeated break-ups, is generally not seen.

Comets are so strikingly similar to asteroids that no defining characteristic to distinguish one from the other has yet been devised. See Figure 1. This is rather opposite to expectations of the solar nebula hypothesis, because comets should have been formed in the cold outer solar system far from the relatively warm main asteroid belt. But the exploded planet hypothesis (eph) tells us that comets are just ordinary asteroids kept far from the Sun for most of their lifetimes. This means most of their volatiles and orbiting particles have never been boiled or blown away by solar radiation, so they still retain considerable gas and dust.[3] Another factoid is that a trace-back of orbits of “new” comets (that have not mixed with the planets before) indicates statistically that comets probably originated at a common place and time, 3.2 Mya. [[4]] But it should be noted that galactic tidal forces (shearing forces from the gravity of the entire Milky Way Galaxy) would eliminate any comets that get too far from the Sun, such as comets originating from any bodies that exploded prior to 10 Mya. So only relatively recent explosions can produce comets that could still be found anywhere in the solar system today.

A major explosion would send a blast wave through the solar system, blackening exposed airless surfaces in its path. Most such solar system surfaces are indeed blackened, even for icy Text Box:
Figure 2.The two sides of Saturn’s black-and-white moon Iapetus. satellites. But a few cases have such slow rotation that only a little over half of the body gets blackened. Saturn’s moon Iapetus is one such case, because its rotation period is nearly 80 days long – far longer than any other natural (non-asteroidal) airless moon. Figure 2 shows a Cassini spacecraft image of Iapetus. One side is icy bright; the other is coal black. The difference in albedo is a factor of ~10.

The eph is able to predict secondary properties of this albedo anomaly as well. The dark hemisphere shows radial streaks along its edges, directed away from the core of the black region. This shows that the material came from a distant source and had only grazing impacts near the edges of the dark hemisphere.

Perhaps the most basic explosion indicator is that, as an explosion occurs, all fragments of significant mass will trap smaller nearby debris from the explosion into satellite orbits. So explosions tend to form asteroids and comets with multiple “nuclei” of all sizes. Collisions, by contrast, normally cannot produce fragments in orbit because any such orbit must either escape or re-collide with the surface. Moreover, if satellites are already orbiting a nucleus when a collision occurs, those satellites will tend to escape into similar solar orbits, creating an asteroid “family” (many of which are known to exist). The eph’s 1978 predictions that both asteroid and comet satellites should be numerous and commonplace [[5]] has been confirmed in recent years. The first spacecraft finding (by Galileo) was of moon Dactyl orbiting asteroid Ida in 1993. Other discoveries have led to the conclusion that several percent of all asteroids have satellites large enough to be discovered remotely. More recently, Hubble imagery found that Comet Hale-Bopp has at least one, and possibly three or more, secondary nuclei. [[6]]

Of all the successful predictions of the eph (and the absence of unsuccessful ones), probably the most striking was the 1999 prediction of the correct time, place, and rates for the two peaks of the Leonid meteor storm that November. This prediction success continued in the following years and included outbursts in other meteor streams. To date, eph-based predictions have continued to outperform those based on all variants of mainstream models, especially for meteor rates. Over 100 additional lines of evidence related to the eph and the standard models it would replace are summarized in [[7]].