Dance of the Planets 2 A New Solar System Paradigm


The Birth of Venus

The Rig Veda, from which the V/A scenario is largely derived, is arguably the most ancient 'book' in the world - an epic poem over a thousand stanzas in length, which was compiled as new cosmic events occurred. Therefore it is particularly enlightening to note that the great impact, described in terms of the birth of the deity 'Aditi' out of the head of Jupiter, is the first
event described in this epic.

Based on our interpretation of the Rig Veda and archaeological sources, Venus was born some 6,000 years ago when a 'traveler', from outside the solar system, impacted Jupiter releasing at least 1040 ergs. The site of this impact is the source of the Great Red Spot, still visible to this
day. The material which rebounded from Jupiter and became proto-Venus comprised all the
elements in their 'natural' proportions on Jupiter, except for those incorporated from the
impacting body, about which nothing is known. The initial mass of vaporized material ejected
into space formed an enormous, glowing plasma cloud so large that it was not only seen on
Earth, but its elephantine shape was described in the Rig Veda. It must have been hundreds of
times the diameter of Jupiter itself. This impact was heralded by world-wide disturbances of the
Earth, probably due to tidal forces as the invisible body passed the earth prior to the impact.

Fortunately, Nature has recently provided us with several similar events, albeit of much lower energy, when the larger fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter. The larger of these impacts each resulted in the rebound of a plasma cloud, which emitted the spectral signatures of a number of heavy elements never previously detected on Jupiter.

In the first few decades after its gravitational contraction from the cloud, proto-Venus was essentially a seething ball of incandescent plasma with a temperature greater than 10,000
Kelvins. In conventional thinking, the heating of a 'planet' to such a high temperature is incomprehensible. The intuitive reaction is that the planet would have been 'destroyed'. In one
sense this is true, because not a single molecule from which Venus formed was intact previously
on the surface of Jupiter. The energy of that colossal impact completely tore apart all molecular bonds and ionized most of the atoms. Thus Venus formed from a 'virgin' atomic soup, and not the 'stuff' of Jupiter's surface.

Several years later as proto-Venus made its first perihelion passage, enormously powerful
mechanisms began reducing the eccentricity of its orbit. Its orbital energy was rapidly dissipated by tidal forces produced by the Sun. Unlike frictional tidal forces on the Earth due to the Moon, which act primarily on the very thin layer of water on the surface, the tidal force exerted by the Sun on Venus acted on the entire mass of the proto-planet, greatly distorting its shape and causing the interior to seethe and further increase its temperature. Because of its high temperature, the material was partially or completely ionized and electromagnetic drag forces, due to the solar magnetic field, also came into play, dissipating far more energy than was possible from tidal forces alone. These processes were repeated at each perihelion passage. The magnitude of the dissipative mechanisms acting on proto-Venus are inconceivable to planetary
scientists trained to believe in an ancient, steady-state solar system made up of rigid bodies.

The heating up of proto-Venus' interior each time it passed close to the Sun made it glow
brilliantly with a white light, as it did at the time of its original gravitational contraction from the plasma cloud. At these times the name 'Vivasvat' was used by the vedic people to describe it.

It was also called Surya or 'Sun Maiden' when it shone in the sky along with the Sun. After
passing through aphelion it was much cooler and because it illuminated a portion of the night
side of the Earth, it was called Pushnan, the protector of nighttime travelers. But when it closed with the Earth, it was the feared deity Agni (literally 'fire'), who scorched the Earth and produced tidal waves that swept across entire continents. The multiple names given to the same physical body by ancient peoples have presented great difficulties to earlier interpreters, but they make sense as we come to understand the varying aspects observed by the vedic people - its changing brightness temperature, its position in the sky relative to the Sun and its distance from the Earth.


How Terrestrial Planets Form


Another profound result of the conversion of orbital energy to internal heat was the loss
of mass. Based on estimates of the current rate of mass loss from Io, the rate for Venus when
near perihelion could have easily been 100 billion tons per second. Enormous dark gray columns
of 'smoke', over a hundred million kilometers long, flowed from the proto-planet, at least for
decades after its birth, due to its very high temperature. The lighter atoms were preferentially
lost because they attain higher velocities due to the temperature than the heavier ones. Once the atoms escaped the intense heat of the proto-planet, they immediately condensed, reacted to form compounds, and crystallized into tiny solid particles in empty space, forming long dark columns of 'ash'. They were black, in contrast with the familiar white or bluish 'tails' formed by comets due to the outgassing and freezing of ices in space.

The rapid outgassing of vast amounts of matter, preferentially the lighter atoms, was the
process that increased the density of the proto-planet from less than 1, characteristic of the
impact site on Jupiter, to over 5 gm/cm3, characteristic of the terrestrial planets. This scenario accounts for the lack of water, the large relative concentration of deuterium, and the loss to space of most of the Argon 40, which had been trapped in the refractory material on Jupiter as daughter products of Potassium 40 decay.

Thus the ancient myth reveals the reason for the extremely high temperature of the
interior of Venus. But more profoundly, it describes the process whereby 'terrestrial' planets are formed - not by gradual, therefore cold accretion over millions of years, rather as a result of the explosive impact of a massive body on one of the great ice planets, followed by the 'cooking down' of the rebounded mass to a high average density as its orbital energy is rapidly converted to heat. A process which requires only a few millennia.

The Venus - Io Analogy

We hold that the internal temperature of Venus is extremely high a result of its recent
cataclysmic birth, but that this is currently not understood because it enshrouded by clouds which prevent us from observing the surface. There is another body in the solar system with a similar birthright - one whose surface has been scrutinized in detail. This is Io, the closest of the Galilean moons to Jupiter. Io is hot because it was born at the same time as proto-Venus, and has been subsequently heated for millennia by the great jet of hot gases from Jupiter.

The internal heat of Io is causing continuous volcanic eruptions, primarily in the form of hot gases being ejected from the interior at speeds as high as 1000 meters per second. Plumes of
gas reach hundreds of kilometers into space where they freeze. The resulting beautiful parabolic
'umbrellas' have been observed on its limbs. Scientists estimate that Io is outgassing as much as 100,000 tons of material per second and the hottest lava ever measured, some 2100 Kelvins,
issues from volcanic vents on its surface.

We claim that the same thing is happening on Venus - 'in spades.' Venus is a much more
massive body, with far greater internal heat and pressure. The bizarre surface pictured in the
Magellan radar images is one of volcanic features in all quarters of the planet. This, combined
with the identical temperature profiles on both the day and night side, particularly in light of the fact that its 'day' and night last about 111 Earth days, is a clear indication that internal heat is driving the entire system. As a result, Venus has the hottest lava in the solar system lying in crevasses all over the planet and is outgassing as much as much as a million times more mass than its little brother Io, 10,000,000,000 tons per second!