Our Complicated Solar System

We know that the sun and planets formed when a large star exploded in a supernova and some of the matter fell back together by gravity. The sun must be such a second generation star because it contains heavier elements that are beyond it's current stage in the fusion process. But the Solar System that we see is too complicated for this simple scenario.

Since this explosion and falling back together of matter is simple, the Solar System should be just as simple but it isn't. The matter near the center of the cloud of debris from the supernova should have fallen back together to form the sun and the matter further out, in orbit around the proto-sun, should have collected in masses at periodic distances to form the planets. 

But the Solar System that we have is much more complicated than this, so there must have been more information from somewhere. 

Why should there be moons in the Solar System? This is a higher information state relative to the simple explosion of a supernova. There really shouldn't be moons, there should just be planets at periodic distances from the sun. 

The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and, Neptune, are much greater in scale than the four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and, Mars. Jupiter is actually more massive than all of the other planets combined, and Saturn is about a third the mass of Jupiter. This is also a higher information state and requires special explanation.

To make the Solar System even more complicated one of the periodic collections of matter that would have formed into a planet didn't form into a planet. This collection of objects remain today as the Asteroid Belt. It was prevented from forming into a planet by the powerful gravity of Jupiter. Two large groups of asteroids are in the same orbital path as Jupiter, at it's Lagrangian Points L4 and L5.

As if all of this isn't complicated enough the outer planets have ring systems around them. By far the most visible, and best-known, is that of Saturn. But why is the Solar System so much more complicated than it appears it should be given the basic simplicity of a supernova explosion? 

Then there are the comets. These have very eccentric orbits, meaning very elliptical, and may be in nowhere near the same orbital plane around the sun as the planets. A comet is typically composed mostly of light molecules, such as water, and the water on earth is generally believed to have come from comets. Salt is also a light molecule and it seems certain that water and salt arrived on earth together.

One thing that is striking is the distribution of moons in the Solar System. There are a vast number of moons in orbit around the outer planets, and every space mission finds more. But around the inner planets there is only earth's moon and the two small moons around Mars, which are almost certainly asteroids that were captured by Mars' gravity. 

There is one scenario that can explain what happened. The supernova must have been more complicated. One thing that would make that possible would be if there had been one or more nova before the supernova. A star forms when enough matter comes together by it's mutual gravity to overcome the electron repulsion between atoms and fuse lighter atoms together into heavier ones. The new heavier atoms contain less internal energy than the lighter atoms that were fused together and this excess energy is released as radiation, which is why stars shine. 

But, as time goes on, increasingly heavy atoms are fused together so that the energy released per time increases. This upsets the equilibrium between the inward force of gravity and the outward force of the energy released. The star may swell and the sun is expected to eventually turn into a "red giant". 

The largest stars may completely explode in a supernova. But before that the outer layers may be blasted off by one or more nova, in an effort by the star to restore equilibrium. These nova are far less powerful than the pending supernova, which is the star exploding from the center. The nova blast off the outer layers of the star, which contain lighter atoms. 

A supernova releases so much energy that it fuses atoms together, creating elements that ordinarily wouldn't exist. The usual fusion process only goes as far as iron and all elements heavier than iron are created only during the brief time that the supernova is actually taking place, which is why elements like gold and silver are exponentially less common than iron and lighter elements.

The far less powerful nova doesn't fuse atoms together but it does fuse the light atoms in the outer layers of the star into molecules. This is how the light molecules that are abundant in the outer Solar System formed, such as ammonia, methane and, water. 

So this explains why the Solar System is so much more complicated than it appears it should be. As powerful as a supernova is it is a relatively simple event. There must have been at least one nova before the star finally exploded in a supernova. I believe that there were, most likely, three nova.

This also explains comets, composed primarily of water ice. The first nova formed the distant comets, the Oort Cloud. The second nova formed the nearer comets, the Kuiper Belt. The third nova formed the methane, ammonia and, water that makes up much of the mass of the outer planets. The water on earth arrived by way of comets. 

So when the supernova explosion threw out a great volume of heavy rocky and metallic matter, the bulk of it was thrown far enough to mix with the light molecules produced by the third nova. When the heavy matter from the supernova coalesced into planets, the vast cloud of lighter molecules was drawn in too. This made the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and, Neptune much more massive, although of less average density, than they would have been otherwise. 

This is what caused so many moons to form. The mass of heavy rocky and metallic debris that is thrown far enough outward to intersect with the light molecules that were thrown outward by the last nova thus becomes part of a more massive planet than it would be if there had been just a supernova explosion. Once the planet forms, other rocky and metallic debris is pulled in by gravity to join the planet. 

But a complication arises in that the added mass of the planet from the light molecules would cause the new pulled in mass to have greater acceleration due to gravity while falling into the planet and would cause the mass to impact the planet with more energy. But this would be creating energy out of nothing, and so it simply can't be done. So what the new mass does is falls into orbit around the planet, where it coagulates by gravity to form a moon. This is why there are so many moons around the outer planets but not the inner planets. 

Rock is so common because it is basically a compound of silicon and oxygen, which are both very common. Limestone is usually calcium carbonate, formed from the bodies of microorganisms.

The earth's moon is widely believed to have formed when a Mars-sized object, named Theia, collided with earth and it's mass was hurtled back into space where it coagulated by gravity into the moon. My cosmology theory has some of the mass remaining on the surface of the earth to form the continents. But this fits ideally with our scenario here. The asteroids actually did start to form a planet but it was destabilized by Jupiter's gravity, losing orbital energy, and it fell inward toward the sun until it collided with the earth. This accounts for earth's moon and, with the two small moons of Mars being captured asteroids, all of the other moons are around the outer planets. 

The reason that the Moon has no appreciable atmosphere is that the water and elements in the air come from comets landing on earth and the moon has not been impacted with as many comets, since it formed later than the earth. At least one comet must have struck the moon because there is water ice in some areas of permanent shadow. But the moon has only one-sixth of the gravity of the earth and this might not be strong enough to retain water vapor and gases like oxygen and nitrogen. It also seems that Mars once had water but doesn't now. 

The most obvious way to explain our complicated Solar System is that there were, likely, three nova, a blasting off of the outer layers of the previous star before the star finally exploded from the center in a supernova.