MYTHS ARE HISTORY
On Modern Observational Evidence for
the Solar System's Chaotic Evolution |
On Modern Observational Evidence for the Solar System's Chaotic Evolution
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1) Interplanetary Exploration
From the early discrepancies between Bronze and Iron age astronomical readings to the later discovery that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic, both observational and theoretical astronomy have begun to cast a cumulating shadow of doubt over assumptions of an permanently uniform “clockwork” cosmos.
Our understanding of the Solar System has been further revolutionized the past few decades, moreover, by the findings of the unmanned spacecraft that have been launched near and far. — Astronomers and physicists are admittedly perplexed at the implications derived from the information relayed back by these space probes. Supporters of modern uniformitarian theories of the solar system not only cannot find data to support their proofs, they also find themselves confronted with a steadily increasing number of unexpected discoveries which flatly contradict their theories. More and more voices in many fields of science have indeed been speaking of mysteries. — The extensive damage visible on all bodies of the solar system was not clear to anyone until the Voyager probes began sending their data back in the late 70s and early 80s. Physical evidence suggestive of profoundly destructive events has now been found to be copiously abundant on every body explored thus far, fostering the recognition that chaotic dynamics are far more pervasive in our solar system than previously realized. The growing sphere of peripheral evidence for earlier catastrophic upheavals in our system includes: the wide variety of axial orientations exhibited by the planets; the skewed structure of the Asteroid Belt and its extensive debris; the devastation we see on the moons and trojan satellites of Jupiter, Saturn and the other giant planets; the misshapen states of Jupiter and Saturn family comets; the ongoing perturbations between Jupiter and Saturn and other planets; the interactive dynamics between Venus and Earth, and Earth and Mars, that recur during transiting conjunctions; and the extensive scarring from what is now known as the ‘Late Heavy Bombardment’ found on all inner terrestrial bodies (especially the Moon). |
Interplanetary exploration over the past 50 years has also revealed a surprising variety of other objects and debris left over from our system’s formative evolution, whose present nature and orbital configurations are complex and varied:
— In addition to the main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, there is a thick torus-shaped zone just beyond the orbit of Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt, traversed by passing comets and the majority of identified dwarf planets such as Pluto and Charon, Eris, Albion, Haumea, Quaoar, Sedna, etc. The great majority of these Trans-Neptunian Objects appear to have stable orbits; some, however, have much more extreme orbital trajectories with steep inclinations. It is considered likely that their present configurations are the result of earlier interactions with the four larger planets. — Several other groupings of asteroids (Amor, Apollo, Aten, Atira) have highly elliptical orbits among the terrestrial planets and moons of the inner Solar system. Some of these may be planetesimals broken off the body of sun-grazing (Kreutz) comets. Other family systems of comets are classified according to the planetary body modulating their trajectories. — In addition, annual meteor showers and periodic meteor storms on Earth are the product of the orbit of Earth intersecting the debris streams of broken-up comets and asteroids. — Moreover, the entire inner Solar system is swathed in an Interplanetary Dust Cloud which extends all the way to the orbit of Jupiter. |
All in all, the large-scale, tell-tale scars sprawled and splattered across the planets, moons and asteroids of our system — not to mention the generous amounts of scintillating dust, ionized meteoroids and tumbling shards of broken stone and other assorted celestial wreckage that continually sweeps around and between them — have begun to renew awareness that planet Earth and human civilization might be much more threatened by celestial objects than previously thought.
Indeed, planet Earth has not evolved in isolation; and celestial impacts are not rare intruders from deep space, but have instead been regular components of the cosmogonic processes that have shaped our planet and the solar system as a whole. Physical traces of these catastrophes seem to be everywhere, on Earth below and in the heavens above. “Can we take a single step without treading on them?” (Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis II.315). “The difficulty is not in finding no traces, but in finding too large ones, and too many of them” that “have already effected great changes in all the planets” (ibid., 315, 336). |
2) Nearby Exoplanet Systems
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Up until the past few decades, the architecture of our solar system was the basic template for models of planetary system formation and evolution everywhere. Recent satellite telescope observations of exoplanets arranged in a remarkable variety of orbital configurations (most of which differ substantially from our own), however, have encouraged new theories of planetary system formation and evolution — including many new theories about the still unresolved problem of the origin and evolution of the planets in our own system.
Most surprising, perhaps, has been the discovery of hundreds of compact planetary systems with orbits located extremely close to their host stars. — Additionally, some of these systems demonstrate a wide range of orbital eccentricities, as well as evidence suggestive of significant planet to planet interactions in the past. — Moreover, in the last several years we have had confirmation of the active migration of planetary orbits in a few of these nearby star systems as well. Current understanding of this unexpected phenomenon suggests that planets are capable of migrating over substantial distances due to catastrophic interactions with asteroids, comets or other planets. In extreme cases, it is theorized, chaotic motions may not only reconfigure the relative positions of the planets around stars, they might even eject one or more planets from the system altogether. Although only a small fraction of the galaxy has been surveyed thus far, such observations have already prompted many questions regarding just how typical the widely-spaced architecture of our solar system really is (or isn’t) — and might our remarkable distinction vis a vis other planetary systems be due to prior episodes of planetary migration in our own system right here home? — The recent discovery of Jupiter-sized objects in short-period orbits around nearby stars strongly suggests that our own system may have been configured very differently in the past, indeed. |
In many ways, mainstream astronomy has come to acknowledge most of the tenets that were once considered too radical to accept. — It is, in fact, now generally agreed by astrophysicists that our own system’s giant planets did indeed undergo migration processes that altered their locations through time. Their migrations are also theorized to have played a major role in the formative evolution of the inner terrestrial planets, including their present size and orbit of planet Earth.
Furthermore, some of the most recent theoretical reconstructions of Solar system history have become remarkably comparable to the dynamic planet-god dramas of ancient mythology, as well. — The favorably accepted Nice Model (named for the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France, where the theory was initially developed), for example, suggests that all planets were once in a closer, more compact configuration before an encounter between Jupiter and Saturn violently disrupted the entire system, ushering in a secondary series of additional planetary migrations and close encounters that eventually separated all the planets across vaster distances. — Built as it is upon many of the anomalous finds from the Voyager missions, the Nice Model thus renews the open-ended inquiry into the origin and nature of the perennial perturbations still presently at play between Jupiter and Saturn, as well. |
3) On the Solar System as a Dissipative Structure
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If the cosmogonic myths of ancient peoples were not fictitious stories, but were instead accurate depictions of actual historical events; if the gods were the visible planets, seen by our ancestors as objective agents of large-scale destruction and violence; and if our modern sciences are also able to bear witness and give evidence for this being the case — does it not then make plain sense that the solar system today displays highly visible evidence of relatively recent chaotic activity?
The pertinent question then becomes: did the orbits of the planets change during the last several thousand years — i.e., within historical human memory? Did catastrophic planetary migration directly impact our ancestors here on Earth? And were such events on high responsible for driving the cultural transformations of humankind below? Some catastrophist thinkers, arguing that large scale changes did take place within our Solar System within historical times, have made serious, concerted efforts to link the myths of our ancestors with the observations of modern astronomy. Conceding that chaotic dynamics have been and still are quite pervasive in the Solar System — and that significant distinctions exist between our star system and thousands of others located nearby us in the galaxy — more and more cosmological models have begun to conjecture a series of catastrophic structural integrations prior to the stabilization of the presently prevailing planetary order. — Not only does the Nice Model, for example, rely upon a dramatic encounter between Jupiter and Saturn as the catastrophic catalyst driving the reconfiguration of an older Solar system, it also specifies that earlier and later interplanetary encounters were necessary for our modern configuration to have evolved from a more compact configuration, similar to those we see in the vast majority of the planetary systems surrounding us. The disappearance or retirement of the old planetary gods — that is, their migration away from Earth and the inner solar system into more distant reaches of the heavens — was also, of course, once a popular mythic motif known worldwide. The ancients themselves also identified meteors, bolides and meteor swarms as pieces of cosmic fire falling out of the sky to earth — strongly suggesting that during mankind’s historical memory our planetary system did indeed pass from a previous orbital configuration to the present one via a catastrophic scattering of the previous order. |
Above all other considerations introduced in the last few decades, new perspectives on the nonlinear dynamics of interplanetary instabilities have been unveiled in models treating the Solar system as a dissipative system (or dissipative structure). Such an approach allows for new large-scale orders of resonance to arise out of the chaotic disruption of older planetary configurations, driven by punctuated fluctuations of relatively small-scale transfers of energy and redistributions of mass.
A series of punctuated equilibria corresponding to a fluctuating sequence of catastrophic structural reconfigurations does indeed seem to fit the cosmological and geological facts far more neatly than suggestions of imponderably slow but gradually steady change. — And a series of catastrophes which unsettled an older planetary order, and thereby set in motion transitional stages out of which a newer, dynamically stable planetary order eventually emerged, would seem to make solid sense out of the otherwise puzzling prevalence of the World Ages motif celebrated by our forebears worldwide. — Consequently, in considering the astounding points of agreement shared between old interplanetary mythological dramas and new astrophysical speculations alike – i.e., the establishment of our modern celestial order being preceded by the collapse of a previous configuration where destructive dynamics between Jupiter and Saturn distinctively prevailed – might we finally be able to posit a historically concrete, astronomical basis for the astounding cross-cultural commonality of interplanetary perturbations abounding in ancient myth? — Did such relatively unusual or rare occurrences indeed inspire and inaugurate much of human culture and history? — Is it perhaps in this sense that all traditional mythologies and cultural histories have ultimately always been telling one and the same story, seen from multiple points of view? |