Heavy Elements in the Solar System
The true understanding of the solar system begins with the giant planet Jupiter. Many myths detail the great impact on Jupiter, out of which proto-Venus rebounded, only 6,000 years BP (Before the Present). At the highest conceptual level, the birth of Venus reveals that (a) Jupiter is solid, not a gaseous planet as currently believed, and (b) demonstrates that the terrestrial planets were formed as the natural result of such impacts.
These startling revelations are merely the tip of the iceberg, from which a tremendous number of new ideas concerning the solar system have logically evolved. The events immediately following the birth of Venus explain that the heavy elements released from within Jupiter immediately congregate at the center of the rebounded plasma cloud and eventually form the solid body of the planet with an ‘iron’ core. Iron meteorites, which are all from the liquid core of priori-Mars (now Mars) verify the presence of other heavy elements such as nickel and molybdenum.
The currently accepted theory of gradual accretion of terrestrial planets from dust in the inner solar system has great difficulty in explaining how most of the iron and nickel got into their cores. The best explanation conventional science can muster is that, in spite of the great time involved (20 million years), the Earth was completely melted as a result of a period of rapid bombardment, plus the heating due to short-lived radioactive elements.
The low density of Saturn, 0.7 g/cm^3, implies that it comprises pure (solid) methane gas hydrate with a thick atmosphere. The higher density of Jupiter, 1.33/ cm^3, is due to the presence of most of the heavy elements in the nascent solar system, evenly distributed throughout the planet, except for those now incorporated in the other giant planets, the existing terrestrial planets. The small amount of heavy elements (iron) in the main belt asteroids, also expelled from Jupiter, are evidenced by their magnetic fields sensed by the few close approaches of man-made probes.
The mass of Jupiter equals 318 Earth masses, comprising primarily water in the form of solid methane gas hydrates. This is consistent with the continual presence of methane in the atmospheres of all the giant planets, since methane that reaches the cloud tops is quickly dissociated by sunlight. Because these planets are frozen, the methane would not be present in their atmospheres but for the nuclear fusion conflagration still underway in recent impact craters, such as the crater marked by the Great Red Spot, out of which Venus was formed 6,000 years ago. The hot gases streaming from these craters heat only the atmospheres and the heavy elements also being released color them, acting as ‘heat blankets’ spreading the heat evenly around the planets and masking their point sources. The oxygen released immediately forms compounds with the heavy elements. Unfortunately, astrophysicists currently believe that the giant planets comprise primarily hot hydrogen and helium.
Based simply on the average density of pure gas hydrates, ~0.7 g/cm^3, Jupiter’s solid body contains about 226 Earth masses of pure methane gas hydrates and 103 Earth masses of heavy elements encapsulated in the clathrates. The great amount of iron (~6.3 Earth masses) in Jupiter is evidenced not only by the large iron cores of the terrestrial planets, the planet Mercury (originally the solid core of Mars), but also by the fact that Io, formed in the aftermath of the great impact from which Venus was born, has been found to have an iron core with a radius of 900 kilometers – an embarrassing fact which astrophysicists cannot explain. The mass of hydrogen in Jupiter is about 29 Earth masses, while the mass of oxygen is 174 Earth masses and carbon makes up about 22 Earth masses. In terms of abundances, the hydrogen atoms out-number the oxygen atoms, roughly 2.7/1, greater than 2/1 (in water alone) due to the methane, CH4, and the H2 in the atmosphere. Because of the ‘gas giant’ theory, the currently accepted ratio of hydrogen to oxygen for the solar system is 120/1, forty-four times greater.
What does this revised abundance of heavy elements in the solar system imply about the abundance of heavy elements in the Sun? It turns out that the solar oxygen abundance is currently a matter of controversy. Astronomers define it as A(O)= log (N(O)/N(H))+12, the log to the base ten of the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen atoms, plus a scaling constant. The values of A(O) estimated by various investigators range from 8.5 to 9.0. These estimates are based upon detailed observation of spectral lines from the photosphere of the Sun. The problem is that oxygen, being sixteen times heavier than hydrogen is believed to have settled toward the interior of the Sun so its total abundance can only be inferred from its surface abundance. The ratio of 1/2.7 derived from the methane gas hydrate model for Jupiter, gives the oxygen abundance in Jupiter of A(O) = 11.58, whereas the currently accepted value for the solar system (1/120) gives A(O) = 9.92. Since A(O) is a logarithmic quantity, this represents an enormously greater potential amount of oxygen than any previous estimates.
Iron, being much more dense, settles even further beneath the surface of the Sun. Unbelievably, the element abundances of the non-volatile elements in the Sun are based on those of the Average Carbonaceous Chondrite (AVCC) meteorites studied in the laboratory. This travesty is based on the similarity of the AVCC spectra with the absorption spectra in the atmosphere of the Sun. As I have explained many times, these meteorites were all blasted from the northern third of priori-Mars within the last 6,000 years and most of them have fallen, and are still falling, into the Sun’s atmosphere, providing the illusion that their absorption spectra represent that of the Sun itself.
My proposal that the oxygen abundance in the solar system, and by inference, all the heavy elements, is much greater than currently believed does not necessarily mean that the Sun abundance is higher, because a much larger proportion of hydrogen could have been lost from the system before the giant planets even formed.
But there is a another, very interesting reason why the heavy element abundance in the solar system might be greater than that of the Sun itself, which no one has previously suggested. The material from which the Sun formed, contracted gravitationally from a slowly rotating cloud, but as it contracted its spin became more and more rapid. The solar nebula from which the planets all formed was released from the equatorial regions of the Sun to shed angular momentum and reduce the spin rate. Thus the early Sun acted as a centrifuge, preferentially spinning off heavier elements, which had not yet begun to settle. As a result one would expect that the planets would indeed contain a higher proportion of heavy elements than the Sun.
(1 Cor 1:19-20 KJV) For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
Interesting. Bookmarked for more discussion later.
Robert
To be a skeptic is easy – you just accept everything in the textbooks, pass your exams and feel comfortable that you are one of the knowledgable elite. All of the thinking has been done for you so you don’t have to ask any questions, even if some of the facts don’t quite fit the theories. The problem with the science of the Earth and the solar system is the ‘great assumption’ that everything was always the same as it is now. There is absolutely no scientific basis for this assumption. Everything that scientists believe, their interpretation of data from spacecraft, is based on that assumption. The first one hundred generations of mankind knew much more about the planets than scientists do today. The ancient writings, occupying an entire section of your library and bookstore, do constitute mountains of evidence, which I have explained in three books – some 800 pages and in my posts.
The problem with dilettantes like yourself is that you only want to delve a few kilobytes into any subject and go on to the next. That is the disease of social networking. I am surprised that you chose one of the most fundamental posts, the abundance of elements, to which you ‘attached’ your remarks. I guess you just got lucky on that one. Too bad you didn’t actually ask a scientific question related to the subject. If you had, you might actually have learned something today.