Phaeton (or Phaëton, less often Phaethon) is the hypothetical planet posited to have existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter whose destruction supposedly led to the formation of the asteroid belt. The planet was named for Phaethon, the son of the sun god Helios in Greek mythology, who attempted to drive his father's solar chariot for a day with disastrous results and was ultimately destroyed by Zeus. It was eventually ruled out and said that the asteroid belt was just unused material that couldn’t form into planets because of Jupiter.[1]
History[]
The hypothesis involving Phaeton started in the 1700s, where according to Titius-Bode law, which was proposed at that time to explain the spacing between Mars and Jupiter, suggested that a fifth planet once existed between the two. German astronomers, Johann Daniel Titius and Johann E. Bode urged a search for the missing fifth planet corresponding to the gap between Mars and Jupiter. In 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres, the only dwarf planet in the Asteroid Belt, and in turn found to closely match the empty position within the Titius-Bode Law. This has led many to believe that Ceres was the missing planet, but by 1802, Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers would eventually discover Pallas, the third largest asteroid in the Asteroid belt and the second object in roughly the same orbit as Ceres.
Heinrich would then propose that the two discoveries might be the fragments of a disrupted planet that used to orbit the Sun, and predicted that more of its remains would be found. In 1804, Juno would be discovered by Karl Ludwig, and in 1807 Vesta would be discovered by Heinrich. The discovery of both Juno and Vesta strengthened Heinrich's hypothesis, and in 1823, Johann Gottlieb, a German linguist and retired teacher, called Heinrich's hypothetical planet, "Phaëthon".[2]
In 1927, "Sibyllinischer Sternkampf und Phaëthon in naturgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung",[3] published by Franz Xaver Kugler, suggested that the myth of Phaeton was based on a real event. He argued that the bright celestial object that appeared around 1500 BC, which caused a meteorite shower to fall down into Earth, was Phaeton.
By 1953, Ivan I. Putilin, a Soviet Russian astronomer, suggested that Phaeton was destroyed as a result of centrifugal forces, suggesting that it had a diameter of around 6,880 kilometers (4,275.03 miles) and it had a rotational speed of around 2.6 hours. This fast rotational period resulted in Phaeton becoming heavily distorted that parts of its equator began to spun off of the planet and into space. Outgassing from the gases within Phaeton caused multiple explosions, resulting in the formation of multiple asteroid families.[4] This hypothesis was not wildly accepted, but two years later, Konstantin N. Savchenko, an Odesan astronomer, suggested that 4 of the earliest known-named asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta could've been moons of Phaeton, with the inclusion of a fifth, unnamed satellite that was suggested to be similar in size to Ceres.[5] The fifth satellite is thought to have previously orbited Phaeton, before it was ejected out into orbit around the Sun. It is believed to have reentered back to the Phaeton-system, where it then collided with Phaeton at a high speed, and thus resulted in Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta to become separate objects away from Phaeton.
However, a study published in 1972 showed that for an object similar in size to Ceres were to hit Phaeton at a fast speed, it would have to be traveling at a speed of around 20 km/s.[6]
References[]
- ↑ Goddard Space Flight Center | Wayback Machine
- ↑ Zertrümmerung der großen Planeten Hesperus und Phaeton, und darauf folgenden Zerstörungen und Ueberflutung auf der Erde
- ↑ A web archive of the book
- ↑ Origin of the Asteroids (Archive)
- ↑ Origin of the Asteroids (Archive)
- ↑ Origin of the Asteroids (Archive)