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Absolute garbage. The Earth has a nearly perfect circular orbit. Any collision with another planet would have pushed it off its orbit and caused it to at the v

Absolute garbage. The Earth has a nearly perfect circular orbit. Any collision with another planet would have pushed it off its orbit and caused it to at the very least created a more elliptical orbit that likely would have made the swings in temperature more deadly for life on Earth. This entire article is science fiction.

indigodaddy 1y ago
This makes some sense actually. Does anyone have a counterargument to this?
- o11c 1y ago
  It's backwards. Highly eccentric orbits are the default; near-circular orbits are the inevitable result of averaging out a large number of orbits after they collide. It's also ignoring the fact that we likely did have additional planets, but after interactions with other planets with nearby orbits, they would have been either ejected out of the solar system entirely, caused to collide, or herded into more circular (non-overlapping) orbits. This is why Pluto is not a planet.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - prerok 1y ago
    While I agree with you on most points, that is not why Pluto is not a planet. The reason is that it was observed "too soon" because of its interaction with Neptune's orbit. Once we realized there were plenty of such objects in the range of Neptune's orbit but we also realized that these were not fully formed planets, we invented the term of dwarf planet, so Pluto was demoted to that status, which it shares with many other objects in the far out orbit. So, it was just a classification thing. We could have also said all those others are also planets.
the_af 1y ago
Isn't the most common scientific theory about the origin of the Moon that a big body collided with Earth? How can it be science fiction if most scientists currently believe this?
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  This guy thinks he's smarter than all those scientists. Consider his opinion accordingly.
  - blindriver 1y ago
    If I'm so dumb then it should be easy to answer my question then.
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      Have you spent any time looking for answers? Wikipedia suggests Theia started on a similar orbit to proto-Earth. [0] In that case, a collision would have left the combined object on a similar orbit to both initial bodies. I actually didn't know this before, but found it in about 3 clicks from googling "theia impact earth orbit". I can't find a really handy source for it, but I also know from various sources that gravitational interactions among the objects in the solar system tend to reduce eccentricities of each others' orbits over time. The best I can find is [1], which probably did play a role even if it's not exactly what I'm thinking of. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis#Possible_origin_of_Theia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis#Possib... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_circularization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_circularization
      - blindriver 1y ago
        Nothing you posted answers the very basic question I had. Even the Wikipedia article says that the hypothesis doesn’t have any real answers because of all the inconsistencies. Let me give you a pro life tip. When someone comes up with an extraordinarily complicated scenario or hypothesis and it can’t answer a very simple straightforward question, it most certainly means that the the hypothesis is wrong. It’s all science fiction.
gus_massa 1y ago
> The Earth has a nearly perfect circular orbit. Any collision with another planet would have pushed it off its orbit and caused it to at the very least created a more elliptical orbit that likely would have made the swings in temperature more deadly for life on Earth. There is a lot of evidence of a big collision, but that's a very good question anyway! I guess the interactions with other planets and asteroids change the orbit to a more circular one. I couldn't find a serious source that confirm, and not even a non-serious, so I'm still curious, very curious. Anyway, there is a good theory that Jupiter formed at 3 AU and moved later to 5 AU and (very slowly) caused havoc in all the outer solar system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Planetary_migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the... So the initial orbits are not fixed in stone.
gustavorg 1y ago
Furthermore, robotic exploration of Mars is already yielding sufficient evidence that Mars once had oceans. There is a well-founded suspicion that Europa and Titan have seas hidden beneath their surfaces. Does this article mean that all of this is just our imagination? I don't think so.

indigodaddy 1y ago

This makes some sense actually. Does anyone have a counterargument to this?

o11c 1y ago
It's backwards. Highly eccentric orbits are the default; near-circular orbits are the inevitable result of averaging out a large number of orbits after they collide. It's also ignoring the fact that we likely did have additional planets, but after interactions with other planets with nearby orbits, they would have been either ejected out of the solar system entirely, caused to collide, or herded into more circular (non-overlapping) orbits. This is why Pluto is not a planet.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- prerok 1y ago
  While I agree with you on most points, that is not why Pluto is not a planet. The reason is that it was observed "too soon" because of its interaction with Neptune's orbit. Once we realized there were plenty of such objects in the range of Neptune's orbit but we also realized that these were not fully formed planets, we invented the term of dwarf planet, so Pluto was demoted to that status, which it shares with many other objects in the far out orbit. So, it was just a classification thing. We could have also said all those others are also planets.

the_af 1y ago

Isn't the most common scientific theory about the origin of the Moon that a big body collided with Earth? How can it be science fiction if most scientists currently believe this?

andrewflnr 1y ago
This guy thinks he's smarter than all those scientists. Consider his opinion accordingly.
- blindriver 1y ago
  If I'm so dumb then it should be easy to answer my question then.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    Have you spent any time looking for answers? Wikipedia suggests Theia started on a similar orbit to proto-Earth. [0] In that case, a collision would have left the combined object on a similar orbit to both initial bodies. I actually didn't know this before, but found it in about 3 clicks from googling "theia impact earth orbit". I can't find a really handy source for it, but I also know from various sources that gravitational interactions among the objects in the solar system tend to reduce eccentricities of each others' orbits over time. The best I can find is [1], which probably did play a role even if it's not exactly what I'm thinking of. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis#Possible_origin_of_Theia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis#Possib... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_circularization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_circularization
    - blindriver 1y ago
      Nothing you posted answers the very basic question I had. Even the Wikipedia article says that the hypothesis doesn’t have any real answers because of all the inconsistencies. Let me give you a pro life tip. When someone comes up with an extraordinarily complicated scenario or hypothesis and it can’t answer a very simple straightforward question, it most certainly means that the the hypothesis is wrong. It’s all science fiction.

gus_massa 1y ago

> The Earth has a nearly perfect circular orbit. Any collision with another planet would have pushed it off its orbit and caused it to at the very least created a more elliptical orbit that likely would have made the swings in temperature more deadly for life on Earth. There is a lot of evidence of a big collision, but that's a very good question anyway! I guess the interactions with other planets and asteroids change the orbit to a more circular one. I couldn't find a serious source that confirm, and not even a non-serious, so I'm still curious, very curious. Anyway, there is a good theory that Jupiter formed at 3 AU and moved later to 5 AU and (very slowly) caused havoc in all the outer solar system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Planetary_migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the... So the initial orbits are not fixed in stone.

gustavorg 1y ago

Furthermore, robotic exploration of Mars is already yielding sufficient evidence that Mars once had oceans. There is a well-founded suspicion that Europa and Titan have seas hidden beneath their surfaces. Does this article mean that all of this is just our imagination? I don't think so.