How long until a new planet forms in the asteroid belt?
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ETpro (
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April 14th, 2010
Even small asteroids have a tiny gravitational pull on one another. Larger ones of course, exert more force. The existing planets are thought to have formed because larger objects slowly attracted more and more of their smaller neighbors which collided with and accreted to them. When can we expect this process to produce a new planetoid, and when might it reach full planetary status?
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A very long time, it at all, because, contrary what you see in movies, the asteroid belt is not a place where you fly in with a small ship and have to vigorously dodgel big rocks to avoid crashing into one. In reality, the rocks are so far apart, that it is extremely unlikely to crash into one without precisely aiming for one.
I vote that the next one to form will be at the L4 or L5 Lagrangian point in Jupiter’s orbit 4 billion years from now. Lagrangian info
Bets anyone?
The asteroid belt is relatively stable in its granularity. The gravity interactions of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars lead to it being a very unstable place for any largish masses.
Generally, never. The biggest thing in the Belt is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) which was formed during the original coalescence of the solar system, but never formed into anything bigger due to the instabilities.
I wouldn’t hold my (or your breath).
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Jupiter pretty much prevents large masses from coalescing, so it will probably be never. Though, as @worriedguy mentioned, Lagrangian points do offer some protection. The Trojan and Greek groups do form a fairly distinct presence that might coalesce.
It all depends if Unions are involved in the construction,,,if so,it’ll take twice as long and cost 3 times as much!
@worriedguy I’ll take that bet!, I say 4 billion an 1, no 3 billion 999 million 999 thousand 999, no hang on, 3 billion 9 thousand 999 million, 999 thousand 999, no wait, oh hang on, how many is a billion nowadays?
Right ok, 4 billion plus or minus 1, or give or take a few, tell you what, 1 more than your answer. Bet you a tenna :-)
@Pazza Make it a 20 and yer on. The clock starts…... Now !
Could we build a planet between Mars and Jupiter?
@stump & @grumpyfish Technically it can be done but good luck in getting the building permit as you’ll have to grease some palms to overcome the zoning laws.
@Pretty_Lilly Nono. There are no zoning laws in space! It’s brilliant. You could build a casino on the moon with no permits!
By the way, you’re upside down.
Great, when I win the bet I’ll have 20 squid to guy a galactic asteroid hoover, we can hoover-up all the rocks in the asteroid belt an make a new home, 3rd an a half rock from the sun.
Me thinks we might be able to get Richard Branson to back this one.
@Pazza Hey, don’t be counting your squid before they hatch, Pal. Tonight I am going to go out and send a few photons in the direction of L4 to stimulate the Lorenz Butterfly Effect .
Umm, If anything does happen let’s all promise we never saw this question. OK?
@Pazza: Is squid a new extra-planetary unit of currency? Hard to make change, I would think. And wouldn’t they smell after three days?
@gailcalled A squid is a unit of jelly worth about 100 lurve.
@ETpro Originally, I was worried about a health issue but that is OK. Now I’m worried about the effect my photon experiment had on L4. Did you detect anything unusual?
The Butterfly effect might have started already.
@worriedguy Glad to hear your health isn’t worrying you now. This butterfly effect can take its sweet time to play out in so large a chaotic dynamical system. Let’s give it a few billion years and check in to see what has come of it. :-)
Well, there’s certainly a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Just a small change in the initial conditions…
Hypothetically we may have one, maybe, only it would be at about 15,000 AU – out in the Oort Cloud. Which is apparently also hypothetical.
Maybe.
@Nullo Cool. I am suiting up for the trip even as I type. :-)
How many hundred years should I figure to get there?
@ETpro: If the weird new particle does actually nullify the speed of light theory, just take a change of under wear and several sandwiches.
@ETpro I don’t have the physics background to give a proper answer, so I’ll wing it. For comparison’s sake, Voyager 1 is presently at 118.7 AU. This after 34 years. My estimates say that it’s going to be another 4 millennia or so before the probe hits Tyche’s hypothetical orbital path.
@Nullo Thanks. I can see I’m going to have to pack a great deal of health food and vitamins. Oh, and a large quantity of Vodka as well.
@gailcalled I’m not so sure I want to be split into a beam of neutrinos. I could get to the Ort cloud before leaving Earth, but could I enjoy my Vodka along the way?
I think so if you realize that “along the way” would no longer have any meaning. Or possibly you and the vodka would become one or none or maybe.
@gailcalled Humm. Me and vodka becoming one or none or maybe.. This plan has an attractive ring to it.
It is a good plan, but you probably won’t hear the ring, since it will either be lagging behind or too drunk to move.
Last I heard all the asteroids in the belt combined would result in an object whos diameter would be less than half of earth’s moon.
Considering the gravitational intereference from Jupiter and the fact that all the asteroids are scattered so far apart, that if you launched a missile randomly into the asteroid belt, you would be very unlikely to hit any of the asteroids, it is unlikely that any planetoid will form any time in the future.
@gailcalled I think that you might get along well with the late Douglas Adams.
@Nullo: And just who do you think was his muse?
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