Hypothetical

Morning All
I have a theoretical question that came to my head when reading about
the Solar system and the relative positions of the planets

If the Asteroids in the asteroid belt had coalesced into a planet (at
'birth'), what effect would that have had on our Solar System?

Gravitational force on other planets for example?
Would the effect have been big enough to have put other planets into a
different orbit and then caused different conditions to exist, even on
the earth?
Just one of those thoughts that pop into an idle brain from time to
timegrin
Regards
Phil

I am no expert but I did watch a TV show about something like this.
It said basically because Jupiter is so big no planet could have formed in
the asteroid belt, basically it( the asteroid belt) is there because Jupiter
is there. Gravitational pushing and tugging.


"Phil Hawkins" wrote in message
...
Morning All
I have a theoretical question that came to my head when reading about the
Solar system and the relative positions of the planets

If the Asteroids in the asteroid belt had coalesced into a planet (at
'birth'), what effect would that have had on our Solar System?

Gravitational force on other planets for example?
Would the effect have been big enough to have put other planets into a
different orbit and then caused different conditions to exist, even on the
earth?
Just one of those thoughts that pop into an idle brain from time to
timegrin
Regards
Phil

Phil Hawkins wrote:
If the Asteroids in the asteroid belt had coalesced into a planet (at
'birth'), what effect would that have had on our Solar System?

What you suggest would require that Jupiter not be in the vicinity;
it is Jupiter's gravity that keeps the pieces from coming together in
the first place.

The asteroids all added up together wouldn't make a planet as massive
as even Pluto. So it wouldn't have much of an effect one way or the
other.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

Brian Tung wrote:
Phil Hawkins wrote:

If the Asteroids in the asteroid belt had coalesced into a planet (at
'birth'), what effect would that have had on our Solar System?


What you suggest would require that Jupiter not be in the vicinity;
it is Jupiter's gravity that keeps the pieces from coming together in
the first place.

The asteroids all added up together wouldn't make a planet as massive
as even Pluto. So it wouldn't have much of an effect one way or the
other.

That's big chunks though. I'm curious if anyone has every calculated
how much mass was there soon after the planets were formed before small
pieces spiraled inward (to be swept up by Mars-at least partially?) and
the tiny pieces/gases were pushed out.

Shawn

Phil Hawkins wrote:
snip
If the Asteroids in the asteroid belt had coalesced into a planet (at

'birth'), what effect would that have had on our Solar System?

To put things in perspective, Allen's Astrophysical Quantities
(Chapters 12 & 13, 4th Ed) gives the following masses for solar system
objects:

Main asteriod belt mass 1.87 x 10^24 g

Saturn's moon Iapetus 1.60 x 10^24 g 0718 km radius
Pluto's moon Charon 1.62 x 10^24 g 0593 km radius
Earth's Moon 7.35 x 10^25 g 1738 km radius
Mars 0.64 x 10^27 g
Earth 5.97 x 10^27 g

I don't know the answer to your question, but I would suspect that the
early formation of the asteriod belt had a positive influence on the
development of life on Earth. Jupiter's gravity field catches in-bound
objects, either capturing them or flinging into the belt. A coalesced
single planet would have a low probability of colliding with in-bound
objects. A dispersed screen of asteriods probably has a higher
probability of colliding with in-bound objects of a size sufficient to
cause extinction events on the Earth.

- Peace Canopus56