Slashdot Mirror
Leading Theory of Solar System's Formation Just Disproven (forbes.com)
StartsWithABang writes: In 2005, scientists put forth the Nice Model to explain the configuration of the Solar System's planets. It was thought that the outer planets, Jupiter in particular, migrated through the inner Solar System, and were then pulled back out by the presence of the outer giants, causing the late heavy bombardment of the terrestrial planets as it crossed the asteroid belt. But not only are extra gas giants that have since been ejected required to explain the outer worlds, but the migration would have ejected the inner, terrestrial worlds, indicating that the rocky planets finished forming after the gas giants were already in place. R.I.P., Nice Model: 2005-2015.
No doubt the actual article says something completely different, but I can't be arsed to read it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Can someone sum it up in a more tabloid-click-bait-like form for me?
"You won't believe how Solar system ACTUALLY formed..." or some such thing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
"So a model gets discarded because it won't work. Nothing to see here."
Fortunately, this model is in a discipline which has not gone political. We can make changes to it without holding any Maoist show trials where researchers get called "deniers."
Until you find the spindizzies that are pushing the gas giants around, you have the problem of not having a mechanism by which planets can move in the way you suggest and result in the nearly circular orbits of the gas giants today. Nor is there enough mass in the Asteroid Belt to account for your "gap" discussion (the current mass of the asteroid belt is less than a tenth that of Io (3*10^21 kg versus 8*10^22 kg), the smallest of the four major moons of Jupiter).
Jupiter has 90% of all non-Sun mass in the Solar System. There is nothing in the Solar System capable of capturing Jupiter, unless there was already one or more Jupiter mass objects present which were flung out as Jupiter came it. And circularizing all the orbits of the gas giants, given such mass exchanges with other star systems, would require vast amounts of time or intelligent interference (like the spindizzy engine), neither which is evident.
Gravity doesn't work this way. You need a mechanism that would explain this process.
So... if you walk up to a one hundred sided die, and the face of the die shows 31. Your position is that means the die is lying because there's only a 1% chance of that happening? ... interesting.
"So a model gets discarded because it won't work. Nothing to see here."
Fortunately, this model is in a discipline which has not gone political. We can make changes to it without holding any Maoist show trials where researchers get called "deniers."
I don't know about that. The status of Pluto seems/ed to be pretty political.
How does this affect or is affected by our estimates of the age of the Sun and Solar System?
As far as I understand, the best guide we have of the age of the Solar System is rocks on Earth used to estimate the age of Earth.
How much extra time would be required for this supposed possibility of the inner planets forming after the gas giants sweeping in and back out?
What tests could be done with rocks from Callisto or Ganymede to constrain the age of the Solar System?
"The problem" started when people began to question His writings and opted to not circumcise their sons.
Science is a great thing, but God trickles out knowledge to us bit by bit to help us grow as his children. Unfortunately some people think Science is the be-all-end-all and ignore Him. That is why we have earthquakes, AIDS, and terrorists.
Trolling is a art,
The five senses we humans possess are those which allowed us to adapt to our environment and live in it; there is no reason for me to believe they are sufficient to explain our universe.
That is, if we are smart enough in the first place, which is very, very doubtful.
I would add to Socrates' famous quotation, "All I know is I know nothing," the phrase, "and I can't even be sure of that."
I've suggested that if they're common, they might explain the "dark matter" problem of cosmology:namely, a reservoir of matter around galaxies that is impossible to detect by normal means, but doesn't require any exotic, unverified forms of matter to explain.
Sorry, dark matter explains three observations: galactic rotation rates, the balance of matter in the early universe (as observed in the CMBR), and gravitational lensing where there is no visible matter. And it explains the first two of those in a way that matches quantitatively.
We know (as much as we know anything in science) that most of the matter in the early universe was not made from electrons and protons, sorry. Whatever its nature may be, most of the matter in the universe doesn't interact with light in any way.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Researchers are rarely called "deniers". That particular epithet applies to those who disregard the science because it makes them emotionally uncomfortable or might cut into their profits or something.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes