The following appear to be discrepancies between current theory and observed behavior. See if you agree. This kind of discrepancy points to the need for a new theory.1
Let “Sun-First Theory” be the label for the current academically-accepted theory of solar-system formation.
1. Fictitious process going from initial ingredients to protoplanet to planet.
Vesta is a large asteroid in the Asteroid Belt which was recently investigated by the DAWN space probe. Given that Vesta does not get larger over time, then how did any of the planets get larger via the means specified by Sun-First Theory?
NASA has identified Vesta as a protoplanet.2,3 And a protoplanet is supposed to be a cosmic body that is in the process of becoming a planet.
According to Sun-First Theory, the sun forms first, then as left-over material rotating in a disk around the sun gets cooler, very small bits of rocky material become present; then rocks collide to form larger astronomical objects.4 There is a known issue in going from rocks that are a few centimeters to a few meters, because the rocks are apt to collide and bounce apart (elastic collisions) rather than stick together.4
With all the material orbiting the sun in the disk with its initial angular momentum, how did the required large number of collisions occur at all? The material in the asteroid belt models the conditions that Sun-First Theory conjectures for the time when boulder-sized rocks rotate in a disk around the sun. The rocky objects in the asteroid belt have different sizes and orbit around the sun in the disk area of the ecliptic (a plane coincident with the Sun’s equator) between Mars and Jupiter. [See image above.] What we find is that the initial angular momentum is conserved and the space between rocks is preserved so that there is no means to cause the rocks to aggregate into larger and larger units.
This observed behavior is at odds with the behavior specified by Sun-First Theory for growing a planet.
*The diagram above “shows a bird’s eye view of our asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars (red) and Jupiter (purple). NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will see hundreds of thousands of asteroids with diameters larger than 3 kilometers (1.9 miles). The green dots represent populations of asteroids – yellow illustrates the populations WISE is expected to see.” —NASA
2. Presence of a planet that is too close to its star.
Kepler 78B is a planet in a different solar system (an exoplanet). According to Sun-First Theory, it would have had to form within its star in order to have its current orbit.
From Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2013-25:
“Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn’t exist. This scorching lava world circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one million miles – one of the tightest known orbits. According to current theories of planet formation, it couldn’t have formed so close to its star, nor could it have moved there.”
Two different teams have confirmed the presence of 78B with its properties.5
I hope this shows that there are problems for Sun-First Theory due to observations of actual phenomena. Additional issues/problems are raised in the book, The Birth of the Earth. We will visit in coming posts how observed phenomena are best explained by Mass Vortex Theory, including Kepler-78b.
1 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn; published by The University of Chicago, 1962, 1970
2 “Huge Asteroid Vesta Actually an Ancient Protoplanet” by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer, May 10, 2012 [http://www.space.com/15630-asteroid-vesta-protoplanet-dawn-spacecraft.html] and other online articles.
3 “Mystery World Baffles Astronomers” Release No.: 2013-25; October 30, 2013 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=36264 accessed 6/16/2015
“The asteroid Vesta is unique: Unlike all other minor planets, that orbit the Sun within the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, Vesta has a differentiated inner structure: A crust of cooled lava covers a rocky mantle and a core made of iron and nickel – quite similar to the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Scientists therefore believe this onion-like built asteroid to be a protoplanet, a relic from an early phase of planet formation more than four and half billion years ago. All other protoplanets either accumulated to form planets or broke apart due to violent collisions.”
4 Why Geology Matters by Doug MacDougall; published by University of California Press, 2011.
5 News: “Exoplanet is built like Earth but much, much hotter” by Elizabeth Gibney; 30 October 2013 http://www.nature.com/news/exoplanet-is-built-like-earth-but-much-much-hotter-1.14058; Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2013.14058 accessed 6/16/2015
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