Meta Research Bulletin ©2006

Explosion Signatures in the Main Asteroid Belt

            In Figure 3, we show a scatter plot of orbital eccentricity (averaged over time, and called “proper eccentricity”) versus mean distance (called “proper semi-major axis”) for thousands of main-belt asteroids. We included the numbered asteroids having periods between one-half and one-third the period of Jupiter. If the primeval solar nebula hypothesis were correct, numbers of asteroids with near-zero eccentricity would be roughly equal at all mean distances well away from the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Indeed, nebular drag and collisions would ensure that orbits with zero eccentricity were preferred. By contrast, if the exploded planet hypothesis is correct, a minimum eccentricity, increasing to either side of a mean distance of about 2.8 au, should be evident in the plot. The “V”-shaped line shows the theoretical minimum eccentricity according to the eph.

            We see in Figure 3 that, despite about as much Jupiter-induced scattering across the minimum line as expected (increasing toward Jupiter on the right), the densest number counts trend up and away, paralleling the V-shaped line, on both sides of the inferred exploded planet distance, 2.82 au. It is difficult to imagine this explosion-predicted low-eccentricity avoidance occurring by chance – especially since the primeval solar nebula hypothesis predicts a preference for low eccentricity values. What we are seeing here is Newcomb’s argument applied with modern knowledge and data. The expected characteristic of fragments that originated in an explosion is seen. The expected characteristic of objects present since the solar system’s beginning, even if only collisional fragments thereof, is not seen.

            The aforementioned explosion signature has been known since the early days of the artificial satellite era, when it was first found for the orbits of artificial satellite fragments when booster rockets exploded in orbit. But when the same signature was first noticed in asteroid orbital elements, the Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) had not yet been discovered. Now that we have a significant number of those orbits, the obvious prediction of the eph is that the same signature will be found again in the outer solar system. Figure 4 shows the equivalent plot for those bodies. Once again, as the nearest perturbing body (Neptune at 30 au) is approached, the number of bodies scattered across the boundary increases.

            Because of the absence of an outer body setting an upper eccentricity limit, we not only see a pronounced no-low-eccentricity signature for the TNOs, but we see that it continues even for relatively large eccentricities. The almost total absence of distant TNOs with near-circular orbits is a strong confirmation of the eph’s prediction. None of the competing mainstream models made any such prediction, although ad hoc reasons for this absence of low-eccentricity orbits are still being invented. But as Peter Lipton recently noted (Figure 5), genuine distinguishing predictions are far better indicators of the value of any hypothesis than any number of ex post facto accommodations.