Posted on 02/24/2015 11:08:07 AM PST by Red Badger
If you've read your share of sci-fi, and I know you have, you've read stories about another Earth-sized planet orbiting on the other side of the Solar System, blocked by the Sun. Could it really be there?
===========================================================
Color illustration showing the scale of planets in our solar system, focusing on Jupiter and Saturn. Credit: NASA
===========================================================
No. Nooooo. No. Just no.
This is a delightful staple in science fiction. There's a mysterious world that orbits the Sun exactly the same distance as Earth, but it's directly across the Solar System from us; always hidden by the Sun. Little do we realize they know we're here, and right now they're marshalling their attack fleet to invade our planet. We need to invade counter-Earth before they attack us and steal our water, eat all our cheese or kidnap our beloved Nigella Lawson and Alton Brown to rule as their culinary queen and king of Other-Earth.
Well, could this happen? Could there be another planet in a stable orbit, hiding behind the Sun? The answer, as you probably suspect, is NO. No. Nooooo. Just no.
Well, that's not completely true. If some powerful and mysterious flying spaghetti being magically created another planet and threw it into orbit, it would briefly be hidden from our view because of the Sun. But we don't exist in a Solar System with just the Sun and the Earth. There are those other planets orbiting the Sun as well. As the Earth orbits the Sun, it's subtly influenced by those other planets, speeding up or slowing down in its orbit.
So, while we're being pulled a little forwards in our orbit by Jupiter, that other planet would be on the opposite side of the Sun. And so, we'd speed up a little and catch sight of it around the Sun. Over the years, these various motions would escalate, and that other planet would be seen more and more in the sky as we catch up to it in orbit.
Eventually, our orbits would intersect, and there'd be an encounter. If we were lucky, the planets would miss each other, and be kicked into new, safer, more stable orbits around the Sun. And if we were unlucky, they'd collide with each other, forming a new super-sized Earth, killing everything on both planets, obviously.
What if there was originally two half-Earths and they collided and that's how we got current Earth! Or 4 quarter Earths, each with their own population? And then BAM. One big Earth. Or maybe 64 64th Earths all transforming and converging to form VOLTREARTH.
Now, I'm now going to make things worse, and feed your imagination a little with some actual science. There are a few places where objects can share a stable orbit. These locations are known as Lagrange points, regions where the gravity of two objects create a stable location for a third object. The best of these are known as the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. L4 is about 60-degrees ahead of a planet in its orbit, and L5 is about 60-degrees behind a planet in its orbit.
A small enough body, relative to the planet, could hang out in a stable location for billions of years. Jupiter has a collection of Trojan asteroids at its L4 and L5 points of its orbit, always holding at a stable distance from the planet. Which means, if you had a massive enough gas giant, you could have a less massive terrestrial world in a stable orbit 60-degrees away from the planet.
Well, it was a pretty clever idea. Unfortunately, the forces of gravity conspire to make this hidden planet idea completely impossible. Most importantly, when someone tells you there's a hidden planet on the other side of the Sun, just remember these words:
No.
Nooooo.
No.
Explore further: Earth's orbit around the sun
Source: Universe Today
Diagram of the five Lagrange points associated with the sun-Earth system, showing DSCOVR orbiting the L-1 point. Image is not to scale. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team
A common enough misunderstanding. They actually originate from there.
There is!!! I saw it in a movie. Everything looks backwards like in a mirror.
What?!?
That's fine classical literature, man!
starring roy thinnes, from the invaders..i liked that movie
Bit of a sticky wicket eh???
Wasn’t there some earth chick that was transported there
too, besides nanzi pelousey...
Wrong on both counts. Gor and 50 Shades are both solidly accepted as crap. The only real difference is Gor is old crap way past its sell-by date and hard to find and 50 Shades is new crap and hard to miss.
Yes, L3 is stable, but not for anything near to Earth’s mass. We could put an artificial satellite there, and it would stay opposite to Earth, but anything much larger than that would quickly drift into its own orbit.
While I highly doubt the existence of another “Earth” on the other side of the sun, the explanation given does not hold water. That explanation would have to assume the other planets have no effect on “opposite Earth” and only affect this Earth.
In truth if there was another planet in some kind of synchronous orbit with Earth, the other planets would exert an equal and opposite action. Sometimes drawing it nearer and sometimes farther from Earth, not just always bringing them closer together.
Theoretically, there could be some such orb.
Them Priest Kings were always making “voyages of aquisition”...
Rat bastards.
>>Wrong on both counts. Gor and 50 Shades are both solidly accepted as crap. The only real difference is Gor is old crap way past its sell-by date and hard to find and 50 Shades is new crap and hard to miss.
LOL. I can’t be wrong for not sharing your opinion.
They went at night.
Thanks Red Badger. There is no counter Earth (we’ve had “far side” probes) but the article isn’t correct about much else. In the unlikely event that a planet of exactly the same mass were in the same orbit around the Sun, it wouldn’t necessarily over the long run gain or lose any more ground than Earth would from Jupiter — the author makes it sound otherwise. Presumably he didn’t think he had to think too deeply about something already known to be untrue.
It is also true that the “counter-Earth” has resulted in some atrociously bad science fiction shows. Have never read the Gor novels, although in my youth was a big fan of the cover art.
I think cuban leaf may be onto something though...
;’)
http://nineplanets.org/hypo.html
So if Michael Moore keeps gaining weight then Al Gore might enter in to a stable orbit 60-degrees away from him?
The red arrows indicate the unstable directions, and the blue, stable.
The only stable points are L4 and L5. However, we have (or will soon) put satellites at L1 and L2 for different experiments. They maintain their locations with thrusters.
I used to think there was nothing as big as Uranus....
Neither is opinion. You stated as fact that Gor is vilified and 50 Shades is mainstream. Neither is true, the fact is both are considered crap and neither is mainstream.
And yet, they are allowed to vote.
Really... have you actually seen it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.