"Crusty" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 24 Nov 2007 21:05:27 GMT, Ralph Hertle
wrote:

Quotation from: alt.astronomy , subject: Beauuutiful! Full Selene

Painius wrote
Selene is a major planet.

Planet Selene orbits Earth and Sun on the ,
not on Earth's equator. Selene always falls toward
the Sun, never away from the Sun. Several people,
including Isaac Asimov and other scientists, have
already decided that the Moon is really a planet.

That's probably a significant fact in support of the Moon as a planet in
a binary planet system with the earth.

The belief of prominent people is not a fact in support of a theory.
Asimov said this as a way of illustrating the uniqueness of Earth, not
as an assertion of any particular theory. It was a way of changing
perspective on our view of Earth and Moon, not as some basis for
calling Luna a planet or defining it as such. Isaac Asimov was famous
for taking unique ideas and toying with them in this manner.

No argument here, Ralph was probably talking
about the *other* facts in the paragraph. When
i talk about the "Moon as planet" idea, i always
include Asimov simply because he was the one
who convinced me, not because he's prominent.

I am not the originator of the co-planet or convex orbit concepts. The
ecliptic observation is probably a significant fact in support of the
orbit of Selene as a planet.

I made CAD drawings of the orbits of the Moon and the Earth, and these
were posted on alt.binaries.pictures.astro.
Due to lack of interest I removed them. Perhaps you saw them. The 12-gon
shaped orbit of the Moon is completely convex, There are no circles,
loops or concavities in the orbit.

The Earth-moon system revolves around the barycenter, this is a result
of the relative masses, not whether or not a body orbiting a planet is
a moon or not.

Again i agree. Others say that the barycenter
should lie outside both bodies. In rebuttal, i say
that because the Earth/Selene system is the only
major binary planet system we know of, then
where the barycenter happens to be and whether
or not it should be used in the definition of a
binary planet system is... arbitrary.

(At least until we have studied more binary systems.)

I the CAD model rendered images the binary planet system can be seen as
co-planets and there is no circular orbiting of the Moon around the
Earth visible at all. It is pretty clear that Selene is still a separate
planet.

The Moon has a diameter of 3,474 km slightly more than a quarter that
of the Earth. This means that the volume of the Moon is about 2
percent that of Earth. The gravitational pull at its surface is about
17 percent of the Earth's. As a planet, it's pitifully small.

Yes, it is the smallest of the major planets. But
not by much. Mercury is not that much larger.
And Mercury is seven degrees off the ecliptic, the
plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. Selene, at
five degrees, is closer to the ecliptic than Mercury
is. All true *satellites* in the Solar System,
without exception, orbit their planets on the
equatorial plane of the planets. Selene is fully
18-23 degrees off of Earth's equatorial plane.

Moreover, lest we forget, tiny Pluto was thought
of as a major planet since long before it was
even discovered! and continued to be thought of
as a major planet up until just recently...

EVEN THOUGH ITS TINY SIZE HAS BEEN
KNOWN FOR MANY YEARS

The size of the Moon is less important than the
other facts that make it a full-fledged major planet
in its own right!

My conclusion or hypothesis is that the Moon was a planet in a similar
orbit to Earth's, and that as the eons went by the Moon gradually
approached the Earth in an orbit similar to Earth's. The Moon went
closely past the Earth on the inside of Earth's orbit so slowly or with
a small speed differential that the mutual attraction caused the two to
counter orbit. I suspect that the combination was gradual. The
elliptical orbits may have become more even in time.


This theory failed because it could not explain why the moon lacks
iron.

It is clear from the visual evidence of the CAD drawn curvatures of the
Moon's orbit that it is a separate planet and that it is only
co-coincidently a captured entity that became a satellite of Earth.

A CAD model does not explain capture, it only shows a static model.
Drawn curvatures? Or were the lines drawn from the heliocentric
orbital elements? The orbit of the moon is best described from Earth
centered coordinates, the path around the sun is a coincidence arising
from the mechanics of the Earth-Luna system and the distance from the
sun. If the sun did not exist the earth and its moon would still orbit
each other.

Yes, even Asimov noted that the simplest way
to describe the Earth/Moon relationship would
be from Earth-centered coordinates.

And Earth would have to be in an orbit that is
far enough away from the Sun for Earth to win
the "tug o' war" with the Sun. All the other
planets *win* their tugs o' war with the Sun and
have firm to fairly firm gravitational holds on all
their satellites. Earth loses, because the Sun
tugs on the Moon a little more than twice as hard
as the Earth tugs.

The fact remains that the Earth *isn't* far enough
away from the Sun for the Moon to fully orbit the
Earth. So for whatever the reason, the Moon...

DOES NOT FULLY GO AROUND THE EARTH

and therefore cannot be considered a satellite.

There has been a computer dynamic mass properties modeling of a
hypothetical collision. That was really impressive. I wish that was
available to see again. Who made that computer demonstration video of
Selene and Earth?

All the modeling in the world will not make a theory true or prove it
true. Models are an illustration, not a reality.


Is there a possibility that the capture of Selene was merely a near
miss, and that a violent collision did not occur? There may have been
some transfer of materials from rings to both planets.


The chemical composition of the samples returned from Apollo missions
supports the theory that Luna was formed from a collision of Earth
with another body and the moon most resembles properties of the
Earth's crust and not its core. Had the moon formed from accretion of
material contemporary with Earth, it would be much larger and contain
more iron.

Not necessarily. And i don't think that the present
collision theory can amply explain two things...

1) The near circular apparent orbit of the Moon
around the Earth, and

2) The nearness of the Moon's apparent orbit to
the ecliptic.

Both of these points are better explained by a
theory of a near-miss that takes place very early in
the formation of proto-Earth, after the iron has sunk
to the center, but before total accumulation of the
mantle and crust materials.

You have to wonder -- if science is correct about the
forming of the Solar System from a fairly stable
accretion disk, then what would a "Mars-sized" object
be doing in a collision orbit with Earth? The chances
against such a thing are enormous!

It was more likely a large asteroid that passed near
proto-Earth and disrupted its sworl. This caused a
second sworl to form near the proto-Earth sworl.
And this second smaller sworl became proto-Selene.

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Indelibly yours,
Paine

P.S. Here are some secret sites... shhh
http://www.painellsworth.net
http://www.savethechildren.org/
http://www.secretsgolden.com