Impacts In The Solar System

It is known that there have been impacts from space on some of the planets, particularly in the inner Solar System. Mercury, the innermost planet, underwent an impact so severe that it distorted the surface terrain on the diametrically opposite side of the planet. The earth's moon is believed to have been formed by the impact by a Mars-sized object, known as Theia. There was a great impact at the south pole of the moon, referred to as the Aitken Basin. Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, which seem to be captured asteroids but that have not impacted the planet,

But this requires a special explanation. Planets, and composite objects, form from the gravitational agglomeration of debris in space that was ejected outward by the supernova explosion of the large star which preceded the sun, which is thus a second-generation star. But the explanation as to why planets do not collide is that, if they were going to collide, they would have not formed separately in the first place.

It does not seem to make sense that composite objects, which could be considered as small planets, would collide with other planets when all have formed from debris while under the same gravitational influence of the sun, but clearly that is what has happened. There may have also been such an impact on Venus that has not yet been discovered because the planet is shrouded in dense cloud. There can also be no doubt that many such composite objects have fallen back into the sun.

There is reason to believe that there have also been severe impacts on some of the outer planets. Uranus actually has it's poles aligned as if it was "knocked onto it's side" by such a severe impact. Recent reports indicate that Jupiter has also undergone severe impacts, which is to be expected due to it's tremendous gravitational mass.

My explanation of why the outer planets are so much more massive than the inner planets is that the star which preceded the sun underwent a nova, the blasting off of it's outer layers, before the supernova, the exploding from the center. The light molecules that formed from the outer layers, having a higher starting point on the exploding star, would have been thrown further outward than the average matter of the later supernova. These lighter molecules, such as methane and ammonia, would have added to the mass of the outer planets but not the inner planets, especially since the evaporative heat of the sun would be much less of a factor at the distances of the outer planets.

But this can be explained by my concept of information and energy, and how the two are really the same thing.

When the vast cloud of matter that was to form the new Solar System was thrown outward by the explosion of the large star that preceded the sun, there was orbital energy as well as information of position of each piece of matter. Orbital energy is based on distance from the sun, since two objects can be at different locations while at exactly the same distances from the sun, they will have different information of position but identical orbital energy and thus we can consider the two separately.

If we want to look at this orbital energy and information of position separately, even though energy and information is really the same thing, It must be remembered that there was a balance, a ratio, of orbital energy to information of position when all of the matter was thrown outward by the supernova.

The matter began consolidating by gravity into the planets of our Solar System, all while in orbit around the new sun. We know that the sun is a second-generation star because it contains heavy elements that are beyond it's current stage in the fusion process. The sun would have formed much more quickly due to the proximity of the matter that would form it. But the ratio of orbital energy to information of position of matter thrown outward by the supernova cannot just be changed and it must remain constant if there is no additional information from anywhere.

Pieces of debris with orbits that crossed or came close to one another gradually coalesced by gravity into the planets and other large compound objects, that continued in orbit around the sun. This consolidation reduced the total amount of information of position since consolidated matter and debris now had the same orbit.

But this consolidation did not reduce the orbital energy because orbital energy is based on the square root of the distance of the orbit. An object in orbit that is given three times the orbital energy will then orbit at nine times the distance, but move at only one-third of the previous velocity, since orbital velocity is based on the square root of the altitude of the orbit.

So, if we look at the planetary consolidation as orbital energy as well as information of position, even though energy and information is really the same thing, that means we will have a change in the ratio of this energy to information as consolidation occurs, The trouble is that such a change would not be permissible as long as the system is constant and there was no new information from anywhere.

This then provides us with our explanation of why such impacts on the inner planets have taken place, even those impacts seem to violate the obvious rule that the reason planets do not collide is that if they were ever going to collide while being guided by the gravity of the same sun then they would not have formed separately in the first place.

If the ratio of orbital energy to information of position must remain constant, because there is no additional information in a closed system to change it, and if one side of the ratio seems to change then the other side much change in order to keep the ratio constant.

This is what causes the impacts on the planets by objects from space, the information of position has been decreased by consolidation into planets and other compound objects and so the orbital energy must decrease as well, in order to keep the ratio constant, and the only way that this can happen is for objects in higher orbits which have more orbital energy to fall to lower orbits, which may impact the inner planets in the lower orbits along the way.

This applies to several of the writings on this blog.

In the compound posting, "Orbital And Escape Velocities And Impacts From Space", we saw how a meteor approaching a planet may go into orbit permanently around the planet when the Law of Gravity seems to dictate that it should just crash into the planet. The reason is that energy can never be created out of nothing. The meteor must have come from a distance further from the sun than the planet, meaning that it was at a higher orbital energy level. But it would also be pulled by the planet's gravity and this would add to the energy of impact. But if this energy of impact turns out to be greater than the original difference between the orbital energies of the planet and the meteor, it would be creating energy out of nothing. Since that cannot be allowed to happen, the meteor will just go into orbit around the planet and will never impact the planet unless there is an additional application of energy from somewhere.

In the compound posting on this blog, "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple" ( Part One ), in the section "Iron And The Planetary Orbits", We saw how the information in an iron atoms, and it's 56 nucleons, is what determined the distances between the planetary orbits. This is because iron is as far as the ordinary fusion process in a star goes, and when that fusion process was complete the star that preceded the sun exploded and scattered it's component matter which coalesced by gravity to form the new sun and the planets. The information in the distances between those planets came from the information in the 56 nucleons of the iron atom, as we saw.

Finally, it applies to the theory on this blog "The Lowest Information Point". This is about the many ways that the universe seeks it's component information to be a square, rather than a rectangle with unequal sides, because the square is the Lowest Information Point. The original ratio of the orbital energies of the debris thrown outward by the supernova which formed the planets, relative to the information of position of all of those pieces of debris, cannot be changed because that would be adding information, effectively making an informational square into a rectangle, so that the total orbital energies must decrease if the total information of position is reduced by gravitational consolidation. The only way for that to happen is for objects in the outer Solar System to fall inward, to a lower orbital energy position.