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Remember the good old days when we understood our solar system? Then we found out Pluto wasn’t a planet. And now a new study puts comets in question. The data come from NASA’s Stardust mission—that’s the one that scooped up particles from comet Wild 2 and returned to earth two years ago. The conventional wisdom is that comets originated in the outer solar system, then the sun or a planet nudged them into weird orbits.
Well, this study in the journal Science contradicts that wisdom. Turns out that the particles from Wild 2 look like they belong not to a comet but to an asteroid from the inner solar system. In fact, Stardust didn’t capture any of the pre-solar-system stuff that comets should be made of. This means that the distinction between asteroids and comets may be surprisingly blurry. Some comets might have migrated out from the inner solar system. Or there could be lots of inner solar system stuff in the outer solar system. Either way, it’s time to start rewriting those astronomy textbooks…again.
—Chelsea Wald
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9 Comments
Add CommentThis is a simple example in which old science was wrong, but eventually self-corrects given better data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis doesn't work with religion, because there's never any better data.
zbicyclist, you are quite tedious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my article "The birth and the Ruin of the planets of the solar system" I wrote When a planet is torn apart, the fragments fly into different directions. Some pieces fly away from the sun. That is how comets come into existence. Others fly at a different angle toward the sun. That is how Mars acquired its moons--Phobos and Demos--which resemble in shape huge fragments from a planet which exploded long ago. Those huge fragments which did not become comets or satellites of other planets in approaching the sun fell under the gravitational field of the sun and became the small planets which astronomers call asteroids. One can find this article on internet. http://uweb.superlink.net/dialect/stars.html
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Edited by Stavinsky at 01/25/2008 3:11 PM
In my article "The birth and the Ruin of the planets of the solar system" I wrote When a planet is torn apart, the fragments fly into different directions. Some pieces fly away from the sun. That is how comets come into existence. Others fly at a different angle toward the sun. That is how Mars acquired its moons--Phobos and Demos--which resemble in shape huge fragments from a planet which exploded long ago. Those huge fragments which did not become comets or satellites of other planets in approaching the sun fell under the gravitational field of the sun and became the small planets which astronomers call asteroids. One can find this article on internet. http://uweb.superlink.net/dialect/stars.html
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Edited by Stavinsky at 01/25/2008 3:36 PM
In my article "The birth and the Ruin of the planet of the solar system" I wrote
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen a planet is torn apart, the fragments fly into different directions. Some pieces fly away from the sun. That is how comets come into existence. Others fly at a different angle toward the sun. That is how Mars acquired its moons--Phobos and Demos--which resemble in shape huge fragments from a planet which exploded long ago. Those huge fragments which did not become comets or satellites of other planets in approaching the sun fell under the gravitational field of the sun and became the small planets which astronomers call asteroids.
One can find this article on internet.
Stavinsky:
1) If it is possible for the sun to eject gas at planetary mass scales, what mechanism allowed it to eject the heavy-element inner planets?
2) If these ejected planet's orbits continue to move away from the sun due to the sun's decreased mass from these ejection events, -why does this not match observational data of current planetary orbits and rotations?
3) If these ejection events happen every 50 - 200 million years, how could the inner, rocky planets, whose ages are known to surpass this timeframe, be explained?
Aliens among us indeed!
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Edited by DonMuerto at 01/27/2008 10:39 AM Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
AtheistsAreTedious you are A LOT MORE than tedious. You are downright DANGEROUS. For every non-scientific one of you there is another scientific one WATCHING you and the false comments you make.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo DonMuerto:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour objections against my article at first glance look very impressive but under close consideration they are groundless. Look at the article below,"As The Science of Evolution explains:" It will give you some clue why.
To be “scientifically†brainwashed is the most common case especially in such field as Economy, Philosophy, Astronomy.
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Edited by Stavinsky at 02/03/2008 7:54 AM
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Edited by Stavinsky at 02/03/2008 11:58 AM
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Edited by Stavinsky at 02/04/2008 7:16 PM
To DonMuerto:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs The Science of Evolution explains: Several methods have been devised for estimating the age of the earth and its layers of rocks. These methods rely heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism, i.e., natural processes have proceeded at relatively constant rates throughout the earths history . . . It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological clock (William Stansfield, 1977, pp. 80, 84).
The potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating method, used to date lava flows, also has problemsas shown by studies of Mount St. Helens. The conventional K-Ar dating method was applied to the 1986 dacite flow from the new lava dome at Mount St. Helens, Washington. Porphyritic dacite which solidified on the surface of the lava dome in 1986 gives a whole rock K-Ar age of 0.35 + OR - 0.05 million years (Ma). Mineral concentrates from this same dacite give K-Ar ages from 0.35 + OR - .06 Ma to 2.8 + OR - 0.6 Ma. These ages are, of course, preposterous (since we know the rock formed recently). The fundamental dating assumption (no radiogenic argon was present when the rock formed) is questioned by these data.
Instead, data from this Mount St. Helens dacite argue that significant excess argon was present when the lava solidified in 1986 . . . This study of Mount St. Helens dacite causes the more fundamental question to be askedhow accurate are K-Ar ages from the many other phenocryst-containing lava flows worldwide? (Stephen Austin, Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1996, pp. 335-344).
In laymans terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986less than 20 years agowere scientifically dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!
Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily.
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Edited by Stavinsky at 02/03/2008 7:26 AM