Part of my workup on the Solar System Mechanics.

Planet Density, some observations.

When you get involved investigating the mechanics of the Solar System an important finding relates to the calculations providing us with the density of each of the planets. Density is determined by dividing the mass of the object as determined by Isaac Newton’s formulas, by the objects volume. The astronomers have made some very careful measurements of the planets that have been published so we can all review and consider what they have determined for us. If you Google ® search or Yahoo ® search the phrase, “Cause for the planet densities?” or “Why does the density of each planet vary?” you will most likely be disappointed with the result. You will get many sources wanting to tell you the measured results with no mention as to why. Of course, the why may be stated to be that the more dense objects are composed of heavier materials and that sounds reasonable. You must then ask again, “Why?” This could go on with no conclusion that is likely to satisfy your curiosity. I am not specifically trained in astronomy so my ideas are not always going to conform to the mainstream views. I do not challenge any mainstream view on this subject. I like to offer my personal view and put it out there to permeate as best it can.

I recall reading, many years ago, a theory that the denser planets were located in the inner Solar System and the formation of the Sun caused much of the lighter stuff, gases and whatever, to be forced outwards to the distant parts of the Solar System where Jupiter and Saturn formed. I do not recall if this is the most accurate rendition of that theory or who should get the credit. Please keep in mind that when I started on this venture I was reading a lot of stuff and much of it did not relate to my particular interest at the time. Educating ones self can be tedious, slow and not always the most accurate.

There are some curious things about planet density that I wanted to discuss just for the fun of it and to share a few of my own conclusions. Let’s go back to the beginning. When the Solar System was forming it has been generally accepted that the stuff being manipulated by the gravitation of the Galaxy was a mixture of dust of all kinds, gases, probably dirt, rocks, minerals, water, and, in short, all the stuff we now find around us. We know of two major physical factors controlling this formation. The immense size of the collection is a separate consideration in my mind because the probabilities are that the stuff at the extremes of the system did not get to travel very far from their original position, except possibly to form into individual objects.

The two major factors was the contraction of material towards the center of the system proving the foundations for the eventual development of the Sun and the slow rotation of the forming system caused by the attraction of the Galaxies central mass as the unformed system revolved around the Galaxy. We are told that in a vacuum all things fall at the same speed. So we can anticipate that there was no selection in action as stuff was carried towards the Sun. I think that everything was taking place simultaneously. By that I mean that our dust cloud had been set in motion, material started collecting into rings that in turn were forming into planets and satellites, and the rush towards the center was quickly gaining mass to eventually explode into our Star. This may be a good time to pause just to ponder where all that building material came from. If we assume it was the remains of a previous defunct star system then we are in the middle of a loop, like a computer program, we must keep making more stuff to support each formation. You will note that I carefully avoid the use of the word “creation” even though, to me, forming and creation mean the same thing. It does not imply a Creator or a Former.

The overriding factor in all of this had to be gravitation- of the Sun and all other objects of mass in the system. If gravitation is a uniform force with no inherent prejudice for some mass over other mass we start with the conclusion that there must be something else at work to put together some objects to be denser than others. We know that gravitation is greatest near the source. We also know that objects in orbit closer to the gravitational source will orbit at higher velocities than objects farther from the source. By these simple observations we can speculate that the reason some objects are denser than others is that they were closer to the Sun and were orbiting faster and that compounded the result to put mores stuff into a smaller object. To my way of thinking a forming planet traveling at about 28 miles per second will crush its collected material into a more concise package. You may disagree.

Another potential factor relates to gravitation being stronger near the center of a large mass and I like to think of this as denser. A side effect of this viewpoint is that due to the lessening of the gravitational effect with distance from the source we might reasonably expect that denser objects will be closest to the Sun with density falling off gradually as their distance from the sun increases. If there had been no major disruption to the of the Solar System I would expect to find a regular pattern of objects of density with the most dense nearest to the Sun from there getting less and less dense on out of the Solar system. We do not have that configuration. We have an even more surprising finding with Saturn rated at a density of, 69 % of the density of water followed by Uranus at 1.32 and Neptune at 1.64!

I will offer my contention on that finding towards the discussion ending.

If we reconsider the method of determining the mass of solar objects we must first of all note this determination is as of today. That determination does not offer any insight as to what has happened, if anything, to alter the mass of the various objects. I happen to be of the view that the celestial objects can contract and expand depending on their location and what has happened to them. My speculation is that Venus suffered a major hit that flipped it over and change its location from about where Mars is to where it is now. That is also my explanation for why Venus is in retrograde rotation. In making that move the Earth received a horrendous amount of water from Venus as it changed from beyond us to in front of us. To fully explain my views on that question requires a separate article or a book due to the complexities to be addressed.

The published densities are listed below. Water is rated as a density of 1.
Mercury 5.43, Venus 5.2, Earth 5.52 or 5.515, Earths Moon 3.34, Mars 3.91, Jupiter 1.33, Saturn .69, Uranus 1.32, Neptune 1.64 and Pluto 2,0.

There are many places on the Web that offer this data. Take a good look at it. There is no progression of the densities in a uniform display from the most dense to the least dense. If we used density as the basis to reconstruct the Solar System the System would look a lot different than it does now. There is a progression of sorts up to Saturn with a density of only .69, or less than water. After Saturn the densities go up again and this is a mystery of sorts to me. The progression suggests that some where between Jupiter and Saturn there could be a hypothetical object with a density of 1. Also at some point between Saturn and Uranus there could be a hypothetical object with a density of 1 as the densities get greater on the way out of the system. Just for the fun of it I wanted to try and calculate what the mean orbit radius would be for each location that had a potential for a density of 1. My calculations may be faulty because I am dividing the distance as if it was uniformly dense at each point between the objects and we have no reason to believe that. All mean orbit radii are in miles.

I enjoy manipulating the figures because at times I learn something that I did not expect. There is still a great deal to learn about our Solar System.

Jupiter density 1.33 less Saturn density of .69 = .64

Saturn 886,695,015 less Jupiter 483,610,227 = 403,082,730

.64 / 403,082,730 = .000000001587938378 (1.587938378e-9)

1/ .00000000587938378 = 629,816,779.7 as the potential mean orbit radius.

So this conjecture suggests a planet density of 1 based on the progression.

Uranus density 1.32 less Saturn density of .69 = .63

Uranus 1,783,953,320 less Saturn 886,895,015 = 897,258,305

.63 / 897.258.305 = .000000000702138940 (7.02138940e-10)

1/ .000000000702138940 = 1,424,219,542.5 as potential mean orbit radius.

This would look like:

Jupiter is at 483,610,227 miles mean orbital radius with density 1.33.

Object One is at 629,816,779.7 miles mean orbital radius with density 1.

Saturn is at 886,895,015 miles mean orbital radius with density .69.

Object Two is at 1,424,219,542.5 miles mean orbital radius with density 1.

Uranus is at 1,783,953,320 miles mean orbital radius with density 1.32.

Note that Object One would orbit the Sun at an average of 7.11 mps.

Note that Object Two would orbit the Sun at an average of 4.73 mps.
 

Note I said the method is not the best due to my using an average density spacing between the planets. It is more likely a progression of some sort.  The little bit of data above is enough to suggest the curve involved with progression from Jupiter to Uranus. If I wanted to carry this effort to the extreme I could speculate that somewhere, either before or after Saturn, there is a point of the least density. How little planet density is possible? I have no idea but the occurrence of density differences probably has an important message to tell us about the formation of the Solar System.

Lets move on to Saturn. Why in the world would our system gradually get less and less individually dense and then build planets that begin to rise in density again. This must have a reason. Common sense could cause one to expect to see a continued drop in density after Saturn. I have not written about it yet but I am convinced that when we measure the mass of a planet we are actually getting the mass of the planet and all of its satellites. If this were true then Saturn, as an individual object, would measure in at even less dense than the current .69. With out going back over the details that I have discussed in my earlier article assume that my Miles-Mass figure is the relative mass of the planet without any contribution by the satellites.

Saturn’s published mass is 5.686e10+26 and it is 95,15 times the mass of the Earth. Saturn’s Miles-Mass is 9117035.8 and it is 93.88 times the Earth’s Miles-Mass of 97,022. If by any chance I am correct the difference is due to the inclusion of the satellites in the weight mass calculated by Newton’s method. 93.88/ 95.15 = .98665.Taking Saturn’s present calculated density of .69 times .98665 = .68. Not much of a difference. The alternative is to re run the weight mass minus the satellites and divide that by the volume. My short cut method should be accurate enough. It makes an unimportant change.

The most curious thing about Saturn and the balance of the planets is that the densities of the planets, starting with Uranus measure in progressively denser as you travel outbound in the system. If the density of all the planets between Saturn and the Sun is a product of the Sun’s gravitation when the system was originally forming then there must be a reason for Uranus and Neptune and Pluto to each increase in their density. If this issue has been discussed before I am unaware of it. There is so much written about space and the Solar System I could never hope to read it all.  I know that at one time astronomers predicted that there was an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune based on some slight variation in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. The search resulted in the discovery of Pluto, which was not felt to be the cause due to its small mass. My view is different. Noting that the orbital velocities of the last three planets is exactly what we would expect them to be based on their distance from the Sun it seems there are two possibilities that come to mind first. (I am aware that Pluto is not now a regular planet)

1, The planets have had a major realignment in the past changing the positions of multiple planets.

2. There is an object or objects of sufficient mass beyond Pluto that creates a progressive gravitational density similar to the effect that the Sun creates on the planets between Saturn and the Sun. Saturn, in that event, would be in the trough so to speak, between two major sources of gravitation.

The first explanation is possible but there is no way to test the prospect. The densities would be argued as the both the symptom and the explanation. The effort of reconstructing the original Solar System would lack a reasonable foundation and be beyond the prospect of logical conclusions relating to the orbit distances and how each planet may have been altered in the process.

The second possibility seems to be more acceptable because we know that there is more mass in the outskirts of the Solar System.  Astronomers talk of the Ort cloud which might contain a sizeable quantity of objects that have mass. We know that there are sizeable objects just below planet size. There is also the image of the Sombrero Galaxy with a heavy looking collection of objects around the circumference of the Galaxy, that to some, may serve as a sample of what our Solar System circumference may look like. So we know there is more mass beyond Pluto but we do not know how much there is. At this point I should interject the speculation regarding the Solar System being a binary system with a failed star that may now be a brown dwarf off in the distance somewhere. This has also been thought of as Nemeses, a large object off in the distance. You can read about these speculations on the Web but nothing has ever been discovered in spite of careful searching for it.

My thought is that we may use the data we have on the Solar System going to Saturn to try to reason where there might be a massive object that would cause the planets after Saturn to show progressive density again. One point that makes the quest seem unlikely is that the orbital velocities of the outer planets conform to the Sun’s gravitation. If there were another massive object I would expect it to disrupt the outer objects orbits. For this article I will simply conclude this point by suggesting that there is more mass out there that is the cause of the resurgence in the density of the last planets. I think that knot is best left to the professional astronomers to unravel.

Getting back to planet densities there is a logical basis to think that it is the density of the gravitational force that gave the planets their individually determined densities, If this prospect is correct a planets density is a measure of how far it was from the Sun when it was formed. This possibility is what caused me to divert attention to Saturn and its friends due to the increasing density at a point in space that seems to present a conflict with my premise. I do not see it as a conflict but rather as a potential confirmation to look for.

Recall they use Newton’s mass divided by the planets volume to arrive at the density calculation. I thought it would be fun to reverse the process to see what the Solar System would look like if all the planets were recalculated to provide each of them with a density of one like a large ball of water! This will require me to recalculate the volume for each planet based upon the published equatorial radius and multiply that by the published density. This will simply reverse the original density calculation method to take a look.

Planet==Radius===Volume====X=Density=New Volume==New Radius

Mercury=1515.5==14579996672====5.42==7.90238+11======2,662

Venus===3759.5==222576787456===5.2===1.57399+13=====6,513

Earth====3963.3==260771692544==5.52===1.43945+13=====7,004.4

Mars====2111.5==39433273344===3.91===1.54184+12=====3,326.4

Jupiter===44678.5=73581456343040=1.33==4.96863+15=====49,134

Saturn===37284==217098651435008= .69===1.49798+15====32,946

Uranus===16246.50=17962593419264=1.32==2.37106+13====17,822

Neptune==15259.5==14971643625472=1.64==2.45534x+4====18,031

Pluto=====711.5===1508673291=====2.0===3.01734+10=====896.5

Everything is in miles. I am sure that some people will see this as another Jim Wood numbers game. I do not like to use exponential numbers but I did it here due to lack of space. This chart is simply showing what the radius of each planet would be if we multiplied the actual volume by the planets density. I then reduce the new volume down to a radius. Everything except Saturn gets larger and the size potential of Uranus and Neptune is reversed.

I originally did this to aid me in my search for a planet rotation formula, an item that is the subject of different article.

My conclusion is that the original Solar System caused the planets between Jupiter and the Sun to form with a density related to their mean orbital distance from the Sun. From the most dense to the least dense up until we get to Jupiter. The asteroid belt probably had a planet there that we can expect to be somewhat denser than Jupiter. The suggested transition of the planets Mars and Venus contributed mightily to the current density of the Earth. We cannot turn back the clock so we will never know for sure. Using Newton’s formulas and the results published by academics the Earth is the densest item we know of.

What mass is there that we have yet to discover?

In another article I argued that Newton’s formula provides an exaggerated mass value for the Sun when considering just the Sun’s mass without all the stuff of the Solar System that hangs on to the Sun. It is too detailed to repeat here, and it is already posted in a different article anyway, so I will simply offer that the mass weight of the Sun is measured at 1.99D+30 and Earths WM is 5.97D+24. In round numbers this make the Sun about 332,948 times more massive than Earth. My Miles-Mass values, (200000000000/6.2832)/97022= 328079 which is the degree that the Sun’s Miles-Mass is times the Earth’s MM. The difference is (332948-328079) 4,869 Earth size masses that the Sun has been exaggerated by the weight mass method. In other words I am contending that when astronomers weigh the Sun using Newton’s formulas they are getting the weight of the entire Solar System, not the weight of the Sun by itself. If this argument is valid there is a great deal of undiscovered stuff out there.

Thank you for your visit. You may check out www.surfingthesolarsystem.com

My Egypt book site is www.egpok.com

James J. Wood, Sr.