Scientists offer a new explanation for a mystery surrounding Jupiter’s two massive asteroid swarms

The lead researcher spoke of “a new and natural explanation for the unbiased observation, that the L4 asteroids are about 1.6 times more than the asteroids in the L5 swarm.” In other words, a ratio of 8:5. In 2018 another team, studying Jupiter’s poles, ‘found an octagon-shaped grouping over the north pole, with eight cyclones surrounding one in the middle, and a pentagon-shaped batch over the south pole. Each cyclone measures several thousand miles (kilometers) across.’ Again, a ratio of 8:5.
– – –
An international team of scientists, including NYU Abu Dhabi researcher Nikolaos Georgakarakos and others from the U.S., Japan, and China, led by Jian Li from Nanjing University, has developed new insights that may explain the numerical asymmetry of the L4 and L5 Jupiter Trojan swarms, two clusters containing more than 10,000 asteroids that move along Jupiter’s orbital path around the sun.

For decades, scientists have known that there are significantly more asteroids in the L4 swarm than the L5 swarm, but have not fully understood the reason for this asymmetry, says Phys.org.

In the current configuration of the solar system, the two swarms show almost identical dynamical stability and survivability properties, which has led scientists to believe that the differences came about during earlier times of our solar system’s life.

Multiple resonances of exoplanets in the TOI-178 system

Credit: NASA

This six-planet system has orbit periods from 1.9~ to 20.7~ days, all much closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun.

It was recently ‘upgraded’ from the three planets discovered in 2018 and 2019.

As usual, the key to understanding the timings of the orbits is to look at the conjunction periods of the neighbour pairs.

Is ‘Planet Nine’ actually a grapefruit-sized black hole?

Credit: NASA

Could there even be more than one black hole? The search for a significant extra planet has drawn a blank so far.
– – –
A coming sky survey will help test a wild idea — that a grapefruit-sized black hole lurks undiscovered in the outer solar system, says Mike Wall @ Space.com.

Over the past few years, researchers have noticed an odd clustering in the orbits of multiple trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which dwell in the dark depths of the far outer solar system.

Some scientists have hypothesized that the TNOs’ paths have been sculpted by the gravitational pull of a big object way out there, something 5 to 10 times more massive than Earth (though others think the TNOs may just be tugging on each other).

This big “perturber,” if it exists, may be a planet — the so-called “Planet Nine,” or “Planet X” or “Planet Next” for those who will always regard Pluto as the ninth planet.

But there’s another possibility as well: The shepherding object may be a black hole, one that crams all that mass into a sphere the size of a grapefruit.

Proposed NASA mission would visit Neptune’s curious moon Triton

The orbit of Triton (red) is opposite in direction and tilted −23° compared to a typical moon’s orbit (green) in the plane of Neptune’s equator [image credit: Wikipedia]

Triton orbits the ‘wrong’ way round Neptune, is far larger than all the other Neptunian moons, and has a high tilt angle, among other peculiar traits. In short, it has some explaining to do.
– – –
When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune’s strange moon Triton three decades ago, it wrote a planetary science cliffhanger, says Technology.org.

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft ever to have flown past Neptune, and it left a lot of unanswered questions.

The views were as stunning as they were puzzling, revealing massive, dark plumes of icy material spraying out from Triton‘s surface. But how?

Images showed that the icy landscape was young and had been resurfaced over and over with fresh material. But what material, and from where?

How could an ancient moon six times farther from the Sun than Jupiter still be active? Is there something in its interior that is still warm enough to drive this activity?

Researchers discover a six-planet system with near 3:2 resonance

With orbit periods ranging from only 2-12 days, this must be one of the most compact multi-planet systems found so far.

Almost visible to the naked eye in the Draco constellation, the star HD 158259 has been observed for the last seven years by astronomers using the SOPHIE spectrograph, reports Phys.org.

This instrument, installed at the Haute-Provence Observatory in the South of France, acquired 300 measurements of the star.

The analysis of the data which was done by an international team led by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), has resulted in the discovery that HD 158259 has six planetary companions: a “super-Earth” and five “mini-Neptunes.”

These planets display an exceptionally regular spacing, which hints at how the system may have formed.

Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and the Grand Synod

Image credit: beforeitsnews.com

The aim here is to show how the synodic periods and orbits of these three planets align with the so-called Grand Synod, a period of about 4628 years which has 27 Uranus-Neptune conjunctions and almost 233 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions. Its half-period is sometimes referred to as the Hallstatt cycle (2314 years +/- a variable margin).

1. U-N ‘long period’
1420 Uranus-Neptune conjunctions = 1477 Neptune orbits
(for calculations, see Footnote)
1477 – 1420 = 57
Uranus-Neptune 360 degrees return is 1420/57 U-N = 24.91228 U-N long period = 4270.119 years

2. GS : U-N ratio
Grand Synod = 27 U-N = 4627.967 years (= ~233 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions)
27 / 24.91228 = 1.0838028
1.0838028 * 12 = 13.005633
Therefore the ratio of 4627.967:4270.119 is almost exactly 13:12 (> 99.956% true)

3. Orbital data
Turning to the orbit periods nearest to the Grand Synod:
28 Neptune = 4614.157y
55 Uranus = 4620.927y
(Data: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?planet_phys_par )

4. Factor of 12
These periods fall slightly short of the 27 U-N Grand Synod (~4628 years).
However, multiplying by 12 and adding one orbit to each, gives:
28*12,+1 (337) Neptune = 55534.67y
55*12,+1 (661) Uranus = 55535.14y
27*12 (661 – 337) U-N = 55535.61y

Now the numbers match to within a year +/- 55535 years.
Also, the period is 12 Grand Synods (12*4628 = 55536y), or 13 U-N ‘long’ periods.

5. Pluto data
Pluto’s orbit period is 247.92065 years.
55535 / 247.92065y = 224.003
So 224 Pluto orbits also equate to 12 Grand Synods.

Therefore, a U-N-P synodic chart can be created for that period of time.

6. Neptune:Pluto orbits
Neptune has one more orbit in the period than an exact 3:2 ratio with Pluto – a planetary resonance.
224 P = 112*2
337 N = 112*3, +1
113 N-P = 112, +1

7. Phi factor
Uranus and Neptune both have one more orbit than this ratio:
660:336 = (55*12):(21*16)
55/21 = Phi²
12/16 = 3/4
Therefore the U:N ratio is almost (3/4 of Phi²):1

The U-N-P chart should repeat every 12 Grand synods i.e. every 55,535 years or so.
– – –
Footnote
360 / Neptune orbit (164.79132) = 2.184581
2.184581 * U-N conjunction (171.40619) = 374.4507
374.4507 – 360 = 14.4507

Obtain nearest multiple of 360 degrees:
1420 * 14.4507 = 20519.9994
20520 / 360 = 57
1420 + 57 = 1477
1420 U-N = 1477 Neptune orbits
1420 + 1477 = 2897 Uranus orbits

Update (Dec. 2020): the number of occurrences of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction precession in the period is 337 – 324 = 13. Therefore the ratio of that period to the Grand Synod (GS) is 13:12, because the GS is 27 U-N and 324 = 27*12.

Galactic cosmic rays affect Titan’s atmosphere

Saturn seen across a sea of methane on Titan by Huygens probe 2005

Some extracts from an article at Phys.org, bypassing the chemistry details. A research professor commented: “The process could be universal”. Interesting…
– – –
Planetary scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed the secrets of the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

The team found a chemical footprint in Titan’s atmosphere indicating that cosmic rays coming from outside the Solar System affect the chemical reactions involved in the formation of nitrogen-bearing organic molecules.

This is the first observational confirmation of such processes, and impacts the understanding of the intriguing environment of Titan.

Are Earth’s obliquity and axial precession in a long-term 5:8 ratio?

Earth’s tilt moves back and forth between about 22 and 24.5 degrees

If there is a mean ratio of 5:8 it would be linked to the known variation of Earth’s tilt, which in turn causes variation in the precession and obliquity periods.

Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition says:
Precession of the equinoxes, motion of the equinoxes along the ecliptic (the plane of Earth’s orbit) caused by the cyclic precession of Earth’s axis of rotation…The projection onto the sky of Earth’s axis of rotation results in two notable points at opposite directions: the north and south celestial poles. Because of precession, these points trace out circles on the sky.

(Axial precession is another term for ‘precession of the equinoxes’).

Our 2016 unified precession post started with this quote from Wikipedia (bolds added):
Because of apsidal precession the Earth’s argument of periapsis slowly increases; it takes about 112000 years for the ellipse to revolve once relative to the fixed stars. The Earth’s polar axis, and hence the solstices and equinoxes, precess with a period of about 26000 years in relation to the fixed stars. These two forms of ‘precession’ combine so that it takes about 21000 years for the ellipse to revolve once relative to the vernal equinox, that is, for the perihelion to return to the same date (given a calendar that tracks the seasons perfectly).

Three linked precessions

In units of 1,000 years:
21 * (16/3) = 112
112 * (3/13) = 25.846~ (near 26)
25.846~ * (13/16) = 21
That was the number theory of the ‘unified precession’ post, i.e. a 3:13:8*2 ratio.

Where might the obliquity period, known to be somewhere near 41,000 years, fit into that?

Referring to the chart (above, right) and converting decimals to whole numbers:
AY – SY = 328 = 109*3, +1
SY – TY = 1417 = 109*13
AY – TY = 1745 (328 + 1417) = 109*16, +1
[327:1417:1744 = 3:13:16]

So that supports the number theory.

Starting out, I just updated the chart to include an entirely theoretical obliquity period of 8/5 times axial precession, linking it to the other known cycles as suggested by my 2016 comment to the unified precession post, here.

That post was a follow-up to: Why Phi? – some Moon-Earth interactions, which showed how:
The period of 6441 tropical years (6440.75 sidereal years) is one quarter of the Earth’s ‘precession of the equinox’.
Multiplying by 4: 25764 tropical years = 25763 sidereal years.
The difference of 1 is due to precession.

[NB Wikipedia quotes 25772 years (‘disputed – discuss’) for this precession cycle, but as it’s not a fixed number the question is: what is the mean period? Earth is currently around the mid-point of the tilt variation, moving towards minimum tilt i.e a shorter precession period. Astronoo says 25765 years.]

But then I came across two things: a paper by EPJ van den Heuvel, cited in Wikipedia, and another entry in Wikipedia (see below), that together suggested viable alternative numbers but with the same 5:8 ratio.

On the Precession as a Cause of Pleistocene Variations of the Atlantic Ocean Water Temperatures
— E. P. J. van den Heuvel (1965)

From the summary:
‘The Fourier spectrum (Fig. 8) shows two significant main periods, P1 = 40000 years and P2 = 12825 years*. The first period agrees well with the period of the oscillations of the obliquity of the ecliptic. The second period corresponds very well with the half precession period.’
[*But the specific periods found were: 42857, 39474 and 12825 years]

From Wikipedia – Axial tilt – long term (Wikipedia):
‘For the past 5 million years, Earth’s obliquity has varied between 22° 2′ 33″ and 24° 30′ 16″, with a mean period of 41,040 years. This cycle is a combination of precession and the largest term in the motion of the ecliptic.’

41040:12825 = 16:5 exactly. Since 12825 is the half precession period, the full period ratio is 8:5 as in the chart, but with slightly different numbers.

If this is correct, the 25764y period in the chart would need adjusting by a factor of 225/226:
25764 * (225/226) = 25650 = 2 * 12825

The Wikipedia obliquity period of 41040 years is divisible by 19, so is an exact number of Metonic cycles (2160), as is the revised axial precession of 25650 years (1350). So the alternative period equals a reduction of 6 Metonic cycles of axial precession. The idea of a role for the Moon in Earth’s obliquity has been put forward before.

Of course 225/226 represents less than half a percent of correction, so could be argued to be negligible.
– – –
Now something else has turned up, written around the same time as two Talkshop posts already referred to:
The Secret of the Long Count, by John Martineau

In the ‘Long Count’ section of the article the writer also puts forward an argument for a (mean) 5:8 ratio of obliquity and axial (equinoctial) precession, using some historical context (see below).

So at least one other person has been thinking along the same lines. Note that 2,3,5,8 and 13 are Fibonacci numbers.

– – –
The Secret of the Long Count

In the summer of 2012 I visited Carnac, accompanied by Geoff Stray. Howard Crowhurst runs an annual midsummer conference there and we had been invited to speak at the 2012-themed event. Halfway through his presentation, Crowhurst was describing his hunches surrounding megalithic awareness of the 41,000-year cycle, when he casually mentioned a startling fact:

The 41,000-year cycle very precisely consisted of eight Mayan Suns.

I did a double take. Eight suns, but five made precession! Startled, I cornered Geoff Stray. He had already come across the eight Suns figure for the obliquity cycle, but not realised the significance of 5:8, while Howard Crowhurst had been unaware of the fact that five Suns gave a value for Precession. We had cracked it.

One Mayan Sun is 5,125 years.

Five Suns give the Precessional Cycle

5 x 5125 = 25,625 years (current value 25,700 years, 75 years out)

Eight Suns give the Earth’s Obliquity Cycle.

8 x 5125 = 41,000 years (current value 41,040 years, 40 years out)

Five and eight! The two long cycles that most affect the Earth relate as 5:8 and are both encoded by the Long Count. The Maya must have known. No wonder they drew so many pictures of jawbones. Five and eight! The same two numbers displayed by human teeth are the same two numbers as those used by the plants all around us, and these are the same two numbers that connect us with our closest neighbour Venus, and the same two numbers that relate the two long cycles that affect Earth-bound astronomy.

[emphasis by the author]

From: The Secret of the Long Count, by John Martineau

Planet Nine: How we’ll find the Solar System’s missing planet

The predicted ninth planet has so far proved elusive, with searches of 50 per cent of the sky in the range where it ‘should’ be having turned up nothing. But planetary theorists Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin insist the evidence shows they are on the right track. Others talk of broken glass and fingerprints – shades of Sherlock Holmes.

Beyond Neptune, a handful of small worlds are moving in harmony.

Astronomers think they might be dancing to the tune of a third world lurking in the darkness, one that’s four times bigger than Earth and significant enough to be named our Solar System’s ninth planet.

Now they think they know exactly where to look for it, says Science Focus.

Why Phi? – Jupiter-Venus harmonics and the Fibonacci/Lucas series

Jupiter – the dominant planet in the solar system

The aim here is to show a Lucas number based pattern in five rows of synodic data, then add in a note on Mercury as well.

There’s also a strong Fibonacci number element to this, as shown below.

The results can be linked back to earlier posts on planetary harmonics involving the Lucas and Fibonacci series (use ‘search this site’ box on our home page).

Why Phi? – the three planets of the Kepler-47 circumbinary planet system

Kepler-47 system [Image Credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/T. Pyle]

Astronomers have discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 system, securing the system’s title as the most interesting of the binary-star worlds, says NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration team.

Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, a team of researchers, led by astronomers at San Diego State University, detected the new Neptune-to-Saturn-size planet orbiting between two previously known planets.

With its three planets orbiting two suns, Kepler-47 is the only known multi-planet circumbinary system. Circumbinary planets are those that orbit two stars.

Continued here.
– – –
Now at the Talkshop let’s take a quick look at the data.

Why-Phi? – some Uranus-Neptune long-term resonances

Continuing our recent series of posts, with Uranus-Neptune conjunction data an obvious starting point for the table is where the difference between the number of Neptune orbits and U-N synods is 1.

647 U-N takes a long time (~110,900 years) but the accuracy of the whole number matches is very high.

Lucas no. (7 here) is fixed, and Fibonacci nos. follow the correct sequence (given their start no.).
Full Fib. series starts: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…etc.
Multiplier: 0,1,1,2,3
Addition: 1,1,2,3,5

The Neptune orbits are multiples of 26 with the same Fibonacci adjustment:
Add 0,1,1,2,3 to the Neptune column numbers to get an exact multiple of 26 (which will be the pattern number in the last column).

Why Phi? – the Saturn-Uranus connection

Distances not to scale.

This is an easy data table to interpret.

The Uranus orbits are all Fibonacci numbers, and the synodic conjunctions are all a 3* multiple of Fibonacci numbers.
[Fibonacci series starts: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, …etc.]

In addition, the difference between the two is always a Lucas number. And that’s it for Saturn-Uranus, which would make for a very short blog post.

But it’s possible to go further.

Why Phi? – more Jupiter-Saturn orbital harmonics

We’re now looking for a pattern arising from the Jupiter-Saturn synodic conjunctions and the orbit periods.

Focussing on the numbers of Jupiter orbits that are equal, or nearly equal, to an exact number of Saturn orbits (years), a pattern can be found by first subtracting the number of conjunctions from the number of Saturn orbits.

Why Phi? – Jupiter-Earth harmonics and the Lucas series

Jupiter – the dominant planet in the solar system

The aim here is to show a Lucas number based pattern in seven rows of synodic data.
There’s also a Fibonacci number element to this, as shown below.
The results can be linked back to an earlier post on planetary harmonics (see below).

The nearest Lucas number equation leading to the Jupiter orbit period in years is:
76/7 + 1 = 11.857142 (1, 7 and 76 are Lucas numbers).
The actual orbit period is 11.862615 years (> 99.95% match).
[Planetary data source]

It turns out that 7 Jupiter orbits take slightly over 83 years, while 76 Jupiter-Earth (J-E) synodic conjunctions take almost exactly 83 years. One J-E synod occurs every 1.09206 years. (83/76 = 1.0921052).

Lunar-planetary links to the Lucas sequence – part 3 and summary

Earth from the Moon [image credit: NASA]

Part 3

To recap, the Lucas series starts: 2, 1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29 … (adding the last two numbers each time to find the next number in the series).

Note: for clarity, the three parts of this mini-series should be read in order (links below).

Since Part 2 showed that 7 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions (J-S) = 11 * 13 lunar tropical years (LTY), and from Part 1 we know that 363 LTY = 353 Earth tropical years (TY), these numbers of occurrences can be integrated by applying another multiple of 13:
363 = 3*11*11 LTY
therefore
353 * 13 TY = 3*11*11*13 LTY = 3*7*11 J-S

7 and 11 are Lucas numbers.
13 is a Fibonacci number.
3 belongs to both series.

Lunar-planetary links to the Lucas sequence – part 1

The Lucas spiral, made with quarter-arcs, is a good approximation of the golden spiral when its terms are large [credit: Wikipedia]

Here we show numerical connections between the Moon, the Earth and Venus. These will be carried forward into part 2 of the post. The focus is on the smaller Lucas numbers (3-18).

Wikipedia says: The Lucas sequence has the same recursive relationship as the Fibonacci sequence, where each term is the sum of the two previous terms, but with different starting values.

A look at the numbers:
19 Venus rotations = 169 (13²) lunar rotations
Lunar tropical year = 13 lunar rotations / orbits (1 rotation = 1 orbit)
So: 19 Venus rotations = 13 Lunar tropical years
(13 is a Fibonacci number. The Lunar tropical year is derived from the nearest whole number of lunar orbits to one Earth orbit.)

169 * 27.321582 = 4617.3473 days (Data source)
19 * 243.018 = 4617.342 days (Data source)

Now we bring in the Chandler wobble:
13*3 = 39
39 Lunar tropical years = 32 Chandler wobbles
19*3 = 57

Referring to the chart on the right:
7 and 18 are Lucas numbers.
This theme will continue in part 2 of the post.

(32 + 57 = 89 axial, and 89 is a Fibonacci number. In 1/89th of the period the sum of CW and Ve(r) occurrences is 1).

Re. the period of the Chandler wobble:
39 LTY / 32 CW = (169 * 3 * 27.321582) / 32 = 432.8763 days

Or, if we say 27 Chandler wobbles = 32 Earth tropical years:
(365.24219 * 32) / 27 = 432.8796 days

The two results are almost identical (Wikipedia rounds it to 433 days).

Note:
353 Earth tropical years (ETY) = 363 Lunar tropical years = 10 beats
1 beat = 35.3 ETY which is linked to the Chandler Wobble
See: Sidorenkov – THE CHANDLER WOBBLE OF THE POLES AND ITS AMPLITUDE MODULATION

These numbers also feed into part 2 of the post, with more planetary links.

Scientists track deep history of planets’ motions, and effects on Earth’s climate

Planetary theory lives on, even if it now has to nod towards trace gases in the atmosphere to be in fashion with the times.

Scientists have long posited that periodic swings in Earth’s climate are driven by cyclic changes in the distribution of sunlight reaching our surface, says Phys.org.

This is due to cyclic changes in how our planet spins on its axis, the ellipticity of its orbit, and its orientation toward the sun—overlapping cycles caused by subtle gravitational interplays with other planets, as the bodies whirl around the sun and by each other like gyrating hula-hoops.

But planetary paths change over time, and that can change the cycles’ lengths. This has made it challenging for scientists to untangle what drove many ancient climate shifts.

What would happen if Mars and Venus swapped places?

Credit: intergalactic-hq.com

ASTROBIOLOGY NASA picked this article from the Many Worlds website, and by doing so endorsed the writer’s apparent belief in ‘heat-trapping gases’. But the “thought experiment” the science meeting was engaging in did not seem to include any reference to Nikolov and Zeller’s Universal Theory of Climate, which could have helped them out considerably.

What would happen if you switched the orbits of Mars and Venus? Would our solar system have more habitable worlds?

It was a question raised at the “Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets III”; a meeting held in Houston at the end of August, writes Elizabeth Tasker.

Latest insights into Saturn’s weird magnetic field only make things weirder

Saturn from the Cassini orbiter [image credit: NASA]

Weird compared to some theories, perhaps – but observations can trump theories, of course. Is it too weird to ask if the planet’s rings, extending outwards from the equator, and its axis-aligned magnetic field could be related phenomena?

Some of the last data from the Cassini mission reveals more structure in Saturn’s magnetic field, but still no answer as to how it formed, says Phys.org.

NASA’s Cassini mission—with Imperial kit on board—took a series of daring dives between the planet and its inmost ring in September 2017 before burning up in the planet’s atmosphere.