"Deep Impact" predictions

Preliminary results for Comet Tempel 1 from cooperating
teams are beginning to appear. See a summary so far at
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20syst...ndings%201.asp.
This compares findings with predictions posted two months ago at
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20syst...DeepImpact.asp. [These links
are to an open, pure-science site with no pop-ups, ads, spam lists,
spyware, adware, involuntary downloads of any kind, or cookies (except
for posts to its own Message Board, which use a cookie only to remember
UserID and Password).]

Dave Tholen writes:

[tvf]: The Satellite Model for comets, a competitor of the Dirty
Snowball model and a corollary of the exploded planet hypothesis
(EPH), makes a very specific prediction that the comet nucleus is a
solid rocky asteroid.

[Tholen]: Solid rocky asteroids do not produce comae and tails, Van
Flandern. That simple visual distinction between comets and asteroids
has been around for decades. You are aware of the June 14 outburst,
are you not? Rocky asteroids don't have those.

As a professional astronomer, you are supposed to be
familiar with the viable, peer-reviewed, published models still on the
scientific table in areas where you claim some expertise. The second
link above cites papers covering the history of the Satellite Model (SM)
for comets, a corollary of the exploded planet hypothesis (EPH), all the
way back to the original publication: "Do comets have satellites?",
Icarus 47:480-486 (1981).

The EPH/SM model agrees that rocky asteroids do not produce
comet comae because comae do not come from the nucleus. They are debris
clouds from the original explosion event, trapped inside the
gravitational sphere of influence of the comet nucleus. That comae are
of this nature is confirmed by the model's past successful predictions:
satellites of asteroids, satellites of comets, salt water in meteorites,
sodium (derived from salt) in the tails of comets, "roll marks" leading
to boulders on asteroids; the time and peak rate of meteor storms and
outbursts; explosion signatures for asteroids; strongly spiked energy
parameter for new comets; distribution of black material on slowly
rotating airless bodies; splitting velocities of comets. See citations
at the second link above. Especially, the meteor storm predictions and
the "split"-comet separation speeds as a function of solar distance
could not have been correctly predicted if the model was wrong because
no adjustable parameters or ad hoc helper hypotheses were used as aids.

It is not really relevant here, but you should also know,
contrary to what you claimed, that asteroids have been known to suddenly
flare up and produce comet tails, further blurring the distinction
between asteroids and comets. Two asteroid-comet transition objects are
known. [See section 3 at
http://www.ss.astro.umd.edu/IAU/comm...eport97.html.] The most
famous is asteroid 4015 = Comet 107P/Wilson-Harrington.

[tvf]: The Dirty Snowball model itself makes no specific prediction
(although individual advocates are betting on various possible
outcomes), but instead has an accommodation ready for whatever is
found. In science, this is known as "shooting an arrow into a target,
then painting a bull's eye around the arrow"

[Tholen]: Sort of like the EPH predicting satellites of all sizes
around Eros, finding none, and then painting the EPH around the
boulders found on the surface. Ostensibly due to the unstable nature
of some of the orbits around an oddly shaped body. Except that the odd
shape had been known for decades, and the instability of some of the
orbits almost as long.

The original prediction that asteroids would have satellites
dates to the first "Asteroids" volume in 1979. It became specific in
1991 when I predicted that spacecraft would find at least one satellite
at one of the first three asteroids visited. That was repeated in my
1993 book, "Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets". The prediction
was fulfilled by the discovery of Dactyl orbiting Ida in 1993. Many more
cases have been found since then. But even those 1991 and 1993
predictions contained the caveat that, for unstable gravity fields or
asteroids involved in collisions, satellites would be found as boulders
on the surface, accompanied by roll marks to indicate their grazing
decay from satellite orbits.

Reports of possible secondary occultations during the 1973
Eros-star occultation event led me to be optimistic that Eros had a
stable gravity field and satellites still in orbit. But I learned of
1995 and 1996 Scheeres papers showing that the satellite orbits around
Eros were unstable because of its elongated shape only a year before the
encounter, in 1999. So I amended the prediction accordingly, well before
the results were known. The 2000 encounter results were then reported at
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20syst...ngeResults.asp,
showing that the prediction amended the previous year was correct.
Neither you nor any other astronomer accepted my prediction challenge.
The only one who even negotiated terms bowed out when I added the caveat
about decayed moons on the surface. But the prediction was in place and
was correct a year before the February 2000 encounter, when the first
boulder and roll mark were found. How does that count as "painting the
bull's-eye around the arrow"?

Is there anything about my present prediction that Comet
Tempel 1 would have a solid, rocky nucleus that you find to be ad hoc or
like painting the bull's-eye around the arrow? Or do you give no credit
to models you disfavor, regardless of their success at making genuine
predictions that other models can't make? -|Tom|-


Tom Van Flandern - Washington, DC - see our ad-free, spam-free web site
on replacement astronomy research at http://metaresearch.org