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Why Our Solar System Is So Atypical

#1
Yazata Offline
In the last few years, hundreds of extrasolar systems have been detected orbiting other stars. One of the typical features of these systems is how common it is to find planets much closer to their stars than Mercury is to the Sun.

So astrophysicists asked themselves: why there aren't any planets closer to our Sun than Mercury?

Here's one hypothesis, from UC Santa Cruz.

http://news.ucsc.edu/2015/03/wandering-jupiter.html

They hypothesize that a number of massive rocky "super-Earths" originally formed very close to our Sun, in the manner of other extrasolar systems. Then Jupiter spiraled into the vicinity of the Sun like a giant wrecking ball, throwing these new planets out of orbit and crashing them into one another. Then, so the hypothesis goes, the formation of Saturn made Jupiter recede to its present location, leaving the inner solar system a disaster area. The present planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars then formed from the depleted dust cloud and from fragments of the earlier planets.
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#2
Yazata Offline
I'm a little skeptical that if Jupiter was ever down there inside Mercury's orbit, that Saturn's gravity would have moved it back to where it is now. (Apparently these astrophysicists have computer models that show it could have happened.)

My speculation is that if there was an inner system wrecking ball, it might have been another gas giant closer to the Sun than Jupiter. Perhaps this planet spiraled in and destroyed the original inner solar system, then was engulfed in the Sun and destroyed.
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#3
C C Offline
(Mar 25, 2015 05:34 PM)Yazata Wrote: I'm a little skeptical that if Jupiter was ever down there inside Mercury's orbit, that Saturn's gravity would have moved it back to where it is now. (Apparently these astrophysicists have computer models that show it could have happened.)

It's been around for awhile how an outer gas giant like Saturn could drive another one inward, but the idea that it could also "finagle" it back in the other direction does seem a new wrinkle.

"In their model, the researchers assume a star similar to the sun, and a system with two planets. The inner planet is a gas giant similar to Jupiter, and initially it is far from the star, where Jupiter-type planets are thought to form. The outer planet is also fairly large and is farther from the star than the first planet. It interacts with the inner planet, perturbing it and shaking up the system. The effects on the inner planet are weak but build up over a very long period of time, resulting in two significant changes in the system: the inner gas giant orbits very close to the star and its orbit is in the opposite direction of the central star's spin. The changes occur, according to the model, because the two orbits are exchanging angular momentum, and the inner one loses energy via strong tides. [...] Only about a quarter of astronomers' observations of these hot Jupiter systems show flipped orbits. The Northwestern model needs to be able to produce both flipped and non-flipped orbits, and it does, Rasio said." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...134213.htm

(Mar 25, 2015 05:34 PM)Yazata Wrote: My speculation is that if there was an inner system wrecking ball, it might have been another gas giant closer to the Sun than Jupiter. Perhaps this planet spiraled in and destroyed the original inner solar system, then was engulfed in the Sun and destroyed.

Supposedly the inward migration of hot Jupiters is halted before they get completely gobbled-up, but I don't see how this could ever become an iron-clad principle that lacks contingent exceptions.

"Eventually, all hot Jupiters get closer and closer to their stars, but in this study we are showing that this process stops before the stars get too close," lead author Peter Plavchan, of NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. "The planets mostly stabilize once their orbits become circular, whipping around their stars every few days." http://www.space.com/21473-alien-planets...iters.html

article Wrote:"We had thought our solar system was typical in the universe, but from day one everything has looked weird in the extrasolar planetary systems," Rasio said. "That makes us the odd ball really. Learning about these other systems provides a context for how special our system is. We certainly seem to live in a special place." LINK

After over three centuries of wallowing about in assorted post-Copernican mediocrity stances, it's about time to finally recognize that. Complex and intelligent / technological-oriented life isn't common, either (SETI is getting impatient). There are countless actual planetary systems and galaxies to provide the necessary grounds and probability of our unusual situations arising.

Also (but lacking yet the empirical instantiation), a cosmos with the "special" fundamental physical constants of this one could likewise be explained as the result of being a member of a vastly larger set playing-out all the varying possibilities. Or rather than being global, they might be confined to just a local region of an immeasurable-sized universe whose "laws" gradually change over astonishing, unfathomable distances. Whichever, there accordingly shouldn't be anything mysterious or surprising about complex and intelligent / technological-oriented life finding itself associated with a quirky past and residing in an array of atypical conditions which might be required to make it possible to begin with, or increase the chances of it.
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