Posted on 03/26/2019 9:33:56 AM PDT by BenLurkin
…[S]ientists have discovered enough planets around other stars to offer a clearer picture of the average solar system, and to reveal the ways in which our own solar system is really weird. For instance, most systems have gas giant planets, but those "hot Jupiters" tend to orbit very close to their host stars. That makes our solar system an outlier. All our system’s gas giants orbit in the outer solar system, while the inner region is reserved for rocky planets like our own.
But according to a new simulation, our home system is even weirder than we thought.
One of the outstanding mysteries of our solar system involves the Trojan asteroids. The Trojans are a group of asteroids that circle the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter but at a distance either in front of or behind the giant planet. These two groups should be pretty much identical, except the leading group of Trojans has about 50 percent more asteroids.
According to calculations by researchers at Lund University, the only way that discrepancy could have happened is if Jupiter wasn’t always located where it is today. The researchers’ simulations suggest Jupiter started out as an Earth-sized planet about four times farther away than it is today. Over hundreds of thousands of years, Jupiter slowly migrated closer to our Sun until it ended up in its present location.
As the giant planet started drifting closer to the inner solar system, it began picking up stray asteroids. Those asteroids eventually became the Trojans. Because of the way in which Jupiter migrated, it ended up collecting more asteroids in front than behind. That’s why this strange discrepancy exists.
...Jupiter spent about 700,000 years in this roaming period, before settling down in its current orbit about three million years after it formed.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Damn galactic warming. Have the sea levels risen there too?
It’s coming to get us.
Global Sun Stalking.
Has anyone notified ‘sandy cortex’ yet? She may have to alter her 12 year forecast.
Go Google the Grand Tack Theory....
Pretty much known Jupiter and saturn’s orbits were not always where they are today.
Maybe the Sun was smaller and it just SEEMED like it was farther away???
I’ll bet the Russians moved it.
OMG!!! Like climate and weather the status of the solar system is not static but dynamic, and assuredly even now is evolving in ways to subtle to see year by year, as they will take many thousands of years to affect.
No, it’s Trumps fault, he wants to put a Trump Towers on Jupiter and corner the travel market with the Russians.
I also think it must be nice to be in a field in which you can put forth theories and not have to be worried about being proven wrong <
Some stand-up comedian - I forget who - has a routine about that. “I’d love to be a biologist,” he says. “I’d announce that there are 845,215 different species of beetles. Who could prove me wrong?”
Oh no! Now we have to worry about Jupiter colliding into us. Climate change and now this. We are doomed!
But science is settled, no?
Back home in Jupiter things are getting harder.
Predicted to make contact with Uranus!
Jupiter’s a cheap drifter, tried to cozy up to the sun but it wouldn’t have it.
Did you see how it began picking up stray asteroids?
There out in front calling themselves the Trojans.
I see trouble.
Moved closer for better fishing grounds?
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