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Phaeton (hypothetical planet)
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Phaeton (or Phaëton, less often Phaethon) is the name of a hypothetical planet posited to once have existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter whose destruction supposedly led to the formation of asteroid belt. In Greek mythology, Phaëton, the son of the sun god Helios, attempted to drive his father's solar chariot for a day with disastrous results and was destroyed by Zeus.
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Phaeton (or Phaëton, less often Phaethon) is the name of a hypothetical planet posited to once have existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter whose destruction supposedly led to the formation of asteroid belt. In Greek mythology, Phaëton, the son of the sun god Helios, attempted to drive his father's solar chariot for a day with disastrous results and was destroyed by Zeus. It is also known as Maldek in UFO and channelling related sources.
The Phaeton hypothesis
According to the now-discredited Titius-Bode law, a planet was believed to exist between Mars and Jupiter. Johann Elert Bode himself urged a search for the fifth planet. When Ceres, the largest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt, was found in 1801 at the predicted position of the fifth planet, many believed it was the missing planet. However, in 1802 astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovered and named another object in the same general orbit as Ceres, the asteroid Pallas.
Olbers proposed that these new discoveries were the fragments of a disrupted planet that had formerly revolved around the sun. He also predicted that more of these pieces would be found. The discovery of the asteroid Juno by Karl Ludwig Harding and Vesta by Olbers buttressed the Olbers hypothesis. Most astronomers today, however, believe that the asteroids in the main belt are remnants of the protoplanetary disk, and in this region the incorporation of protoplanetary remnants into the planets was prevented by large gravitational perturbations induced by Jupiter during the formative period of the solar system.
In the twentieth century, Russian meteoriticist Yevgeny Leonidovich Krinov (involved in the investigation of the Tunguska event), suggested that the exploded planet in the Olbers theory be named Phaeton after the story in Greek myth.
Planet Phaeton today
Today, the Phaeton hypothesis has been largely discarded by the scientific community, after it was superseded by the accretion model. This, currently the most popular explanation of the solar system's formation, states that the solar system was formed out of a vast cloud of dust and gas which gradually developed a rotary motion and condensed by attraction. The asteroid belt, in this way of thinking, can be regarded as remnants of a planet that never quite formed due to the gravitational interference of Jupiter.
The theories today regarding the formation of the asteroid belt from the destruction of a hypothetical fifth planet are usually collectively referred to as the disruption theory. This theory states that there was once a major planetary member of the solar system circulating in the present gap between Mars and Jupiter, which was variously destroyed when:
- it veered too close to Jupiter and was torn apart by the gas giant's powerful gravity.
- it was struck by another large celestial body.
- it was destroyed by a hypothetical brown dwarf, the companion star to the Sun known as Nemesis.
- it was shattered by some great internal catastrophe, as with the fictional Krypton.
One notable proponent is Zecharia Sitchin, who has proposed, based on his reading of ancient Sumerian mythology, that the planet known to the Sumerians as Tiamat was destroyed by a rogue planet known as Nibiru. However, his work is widely regarded as pseudoscience.
3200 Phaethon, sometimes incorrectly spelled Phaeton, shares Phaeton's name. 3200 Phaethon is a Mercury-, Venus-, and Mars- orbit crossing Apollo asteroid with unusual properties.
Phaeton in literature
- Ocean by Warren Ellis discusses the possibility of an ancient proto-human culture originating on Phaeton.
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein mentions that an unnamed fifth planet was destroyed by Martians after they deemed it too barbaric to be allowed to exist.
- The book by Alexander Kazantsev Faety (The Destruction of Faena) shows a fictional history of Phaeton (called Faena), and ends with the planet's destruction as a result of nuclear war.
- A short story by Ross Rocklynne, Time Wants a Skeleton involves time travel to Phaeton, an Earth-like planet to the time just before it was destroyed in collision with another (unnamed) planet.
- James P. Hogan's Giants series, a series of five science fiction novels (Inherit the Stars (1977), The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978), Giants' Star (1981), Entoverse (1991) and Mission to Minerva (2005)) described an alien race which inhabited a destroyed fifth planet between Mars and Jupiter, although the planet is never named by its inhabitants (it is named "Minerva" by the human team who theorized its existence).
- Andromeda Stories by Keiko Takemiya & Ryu Mitsuse features a pair of robot characters who hail from Phaeton who have been sent to explore the titular galaxy & find the planet destroyed upon their return.
See also
Sources
Books
- see, for instance,
, p. 35.
, Records of meetings 1808-1916 in v. 11-27, p. 872.
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