Many astronomers have assumed that asteroids are aggregations of dust and debris. The solar system's beginnings are usually described as a disk of gas which gradually condensed into sun and planets. According to this hypothesis, the gaps between the planets are areas where debris has been swept up by planetary gravity. Many astronomers think that the asteroid belt is an area where the debris has not yet formed into a planet. The Near spacecraft has found evidence that Eros is NOT a whole lot of space rock somehow stuck together.

1. Eros has uniform composition and color. The density of Eros is uniform and similar to the Earth's crust.

2. Eros has long parallel groves and cliffs, some of which wrap almost completely around the asteroid. The cliffs can be almost vertical walls 100 meters high and kilometers long. How can you explain these long features if Eros is an accumulation of space dust?

3. Eros is dotted with more than a million boulders around 10 meters wide. It is also pockmarked with more than 100,000 craters about 20 meters in diameter. There are also craters several kilometers in diameter. Some areas of Eros are clearly covered with rubble (regolith). This fine loose material was presumably produced from collisions grinding down the rocks of Eros. It is impossible to prove whether most of the collisions occurred during a time of intense chaos or gradually over long eons.

This evidence suggests that Eros is a broken piece from a larger body. It certainly is NOT a collection of rubble stuck together by minuscule gravity. Could Eros be a sliver from a large planet's crust? A large planet would require a great collision to shatter. How could planets collide?

Today all the planets are separated by long distances. There is a strange mathematical relation between a planet's sequence from the sun and its distance - known as Bode's Law. If you plot the distance between the sun and each planet on a logarithmic scale, the actual spacing between adjacent points on the plot remains approximately the same. Many astronomers claim that Bode's Law spacing is just a coincidence. The large moons which orbit in a plane of Jupiter (Io, Europa. Ganymede, & Callisto) and Uranus (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, & Oberon) also exhibits similar logarithmic relationships. Is there a gravitational cause for this relationship? The main band of asteroids rotates in a wide band in a prograde direction. The center of this band has a place in Bode's mathematical sequence. Did a great planet once orbit here? Are the asteroids the shattered remnants of this planet?

The ancient people had a great deal to say about the planets. They worshiped them as gods and followed their course with great interest. Wait a minute! They were pagans - believing all sorts of foolish myths!

The most important thing to remember about pagans is that they celebrated the past. Societies today imagine progress and advancement into a better future. A few thousand years ago people longed for the ancient days when everything was so much better. They believed in a golden age - when life was long and sweet. ( Read Metamorphoses by Ovid and Theogeny by Hesiod). The ancients believed their ancestors lived on an earth without seasons - a perpetual spring. Time moved slowly in that ancient age. Then the gods fought in the heavens and chaos destroyed that golden age. It was after the great war of the gods that the seasons began and the planets took up orderly motions. The Babylonian new year festival of akitu was typical of celebrations in pagan religions. For twelve days the Babylonians celebrated the great ancient time with recitations of the Enuma Elis and the Epic of Gilgamesh. They also held theatrical performances where actors re-enacted the great struggle between the planets Marduk and Tiamut.

The pagans remembered the planets as new gods. In their world view, the gods (planets) were all born. New gods (planets) periodically displaced older gods such as Ea (Neptune?), Anu (Uranus?) and Anshar (Saturn). The new gods started out without a tablet of destinies. Then they struggled with and displaced the older gods. It was then that they came into possession of a tablet of destinies (a secure orbit?). One of the winds (moons?) of the great planet Marduk struck Tiamut a massive blow as the two planets approached each other. Tiamut was split in half. One part was ejected and the other half placed as a ceiling to the sky. During the battle, all the gods (planets) were milling about in a chaotic fashion. The battle made Marduk the king and he assigned the gods their stations and established the seasons. Did the ancients see the formation of the asteroids when a planet broke up? The Bible also makes several references to catastrophic events in the sky. It uses words like those found in the pagan stories without admitting that the planets were gods. Could it be that people saw the destruction of a great planet with their bare eyeballs? The Enuma Elis is a pagan interpretation of catastrophic events which includes myths about beginnings. It certainly cannot represent "the unvarnished truth." It is reasonable to expect that if people saw a great planet smashed, they would invent stories to "explain" it. Those stories were based on their "world view" which involved planet gods. Modern scientists also make up stories about beginnings based on their "world view." The Sumerian / Babylonian myths are amazingly similar to ancient myths from other cultures all over the world.

We could summarize the ancient belief system like this: 1. Everything, including time, the planets, the earth, the weather, human societies, and life expectancy were better in the beginning. 2. Chaos - which came because of a battle between the planet gods - changed everything into an inferior age. Then the long and pleasant lives of the ancestors became only a distant memory.

Isn't it preposterous to believe that planet surfaces and moons were visible to our ancestors only a few millennia ago? How can anyone believe tales like this when the planets are mere specks of light to our eyes? Why did they tell stories about Jupiter's thunder bolts? Why did they depict Saturn with halos or rings? How could the Babylonians forecast events based on whether a star approached Venus' right or left horn? The records imply that they saw Venus like we see the moon. Scientists argue that verbal descriptions are worthless. Science is based on accurate measurements.

The ancient astronomers also made measurements. Claudius Ptolemy recorded observations of the planets and the position of 1022 stars 1850 years ago. He also measured the diameter of the planets and the parallax to the moon. His instrument for measuring the diameter of planets was four cubits (6 feet ~ 3 meters long). It had a sliding block that either covered or framed the planet being measured. It used a pinhole for a sight. The length between the pinhole and block was used to calculate the angular diameter of a planet. Did Ptolemy really use this instrument to measure the diameter of the planets? Ptolemy says in the Optics that the sizes of bodies at the horizon appear larger but this is an illusion. The optical illusion that it is larger is in our minds - not in the diameter of the moon. Only an instrument can detect that the size of the moon has not changed when it is near the horizon. Ptolemy must have used his instrument to measure the moon and he claims to have measured the diameter of the planets.
 

Table of Planet Sizes as seen from Earth

                                                 Modern Size                                                  Ptolemy's Size                   Ratio
 

Mercury	5 - 13 arc sec	2 min	9x
Venus	10 - 64 arc sec	3 min	3x
Mars	4 - 25 arc sec	1 ½ min	3.6x
Jupiter	31 - 48 arc sec	2 ½ min	3 1/8x
Saturn	15 - 21 arc sec *	1 2/3 min	4 3/4x

* Saturn's size does not include the visible rings.

Ptolemy's measurements are sometimes "interpreted" as just a brightness scale expressed in minutes of arc. This might be a valid interpretation except that he describes the instrument he used to make the measurements. Ptolemy mentions that previous astronomers had measured the diameter of the planets with a water clock. He rejects this as inaccurate. He also mentions that his planet measurements were smaller than the sizes measured in the past.

Imagine that today we attempted to measure Venus' diameter with a water clock. Let us choose the date close to inferior conjunction (when its angular diameter is 64 arc seconds). Of course we could not time Venus as it crossed the meridian except during an unlikely solar eclipse. We could however use an unguided telescope with a cross-hair to measure the time for Venus to pass across our telescopic line. Venus would not be a full disk at conjunction so we would have to measure across both the grey and the bright side. The earth today rotates at 15.04 seconds of arc / sec. We would need a water clock that could accurately measure 4.25 seconds to measure Venus' diameter. We would doubtless conclude with Ptolemy that this was an inaccurate method. Remember that Ptolemy says this was a method used in the past. If Ptolemy's description of the water clock technique is valid, then one of the following must be true.

1. A few millennia ago the planets were closer (therefore larger in diameter).

2. The earth's rotation has somehow changed.

3. Both the planets were closer and the rotation was slower.

The Babylonian values for the synodic periods of the planets are essentially identical to our values. That does not guarantee that the planet orbits were identical then. There is still a very simple way that change can occur that would allow all of the above to be true. It just means that something may be wrong with our most basic assumption. More on this later.

Did Ptolemy measure a smaller solar system with closer (optically larger) bodies? Consider his measured diameters of the sun and moon. His moon was only the same size as the sun when it was smallest. This is when it is at its greatest distance from earth. According to his measurements, Ptolemy should never have seen an annular eclipse. By the way, Ptolemy's method for determining solar eclipses does not work today. It could only have worked during Ptolemy's time if the solar system was much smaller. Ptolemy's lunar diameter was 35' 20" at least distance and 31' 20" at greatest distance. His measurement of the sun's diameter was 31' 20" and the sun's parallax was 1' 25". This is today known as diurnal parallax. If the sun is directly overhead the parallax is zero. If we observe the sun some other time, a certain amount of parallax exists because we are displaced from the center of the Earth - sun line. The solar parallax is a measure of the distance of the sun to the earth. The sun's parallax today is about 8.8". Ptolemy gives us the full construction details of his parallax instrument in Book 5 Section 12. He also gives us a table of parallaxes for the Sun and Moon in Book 5 Section 18. It is remarkable that all ancient astronomers who measured the solar system consistently came up with much shorter distances. (See Aristarchus of Samos translated by Sir Thomas Heath). Their measurements of duration for the moon and planetary phenomena seem to be remarkably accurate. Their measurements of position and dates of eclipses are usually inaccurate. Many have argued that this is because their methods were inaccurate.  Ptolemy, however, describes both his instruments and his mathematics.

Robert R. Newton has claimed that Ptolemy was a fraud because his measurements do not agree with modern calculations. It is amazing that Ptolemy managed to achieve such a remarkable mathematical system from "fabricated" observations. Remember Ptolemy's parameters were used by astronomers for about 1500 years. The interested reader should read the chapter "Was Ptolemy a fraud?" in the Eye of Heaven by Owen Gingrich. Remember Ptolemy described both his observations and his mathematical techniques. How could his methods predict planetary positions which are more accurate than the observations he used to establish his parameters? (I use the word accurate in the sense that they are at odds with our modern mathematical models). Ptolemy recorded four positions close to maximum elongation for Venus. His values ranged from 24' to 67' larger than modern calculations. This is consistent with a smaller solar system in his day. Did Venus stand higher in the sky in his day by more than a degree at maximum elongation? His system for Mercury is unnecessarily complex. If the solar system was as small as his measurements, he may have needed such a complex Mercury theory to account for its complex orbit. His recorded observations of the superior planet all have negative longitudinal errors. Are these measurements consistent with a smaller solar system? If the fundamental assumption were false, would Ptolemy's measurements have been both accurate and consistent? Could his mathematics have worked in his solar system but not ours? Remember an assumption is something taken for granted without evidence or proof. A fundamental assumption underlies the entire epistemological system.

Ancient astronomers made measurements and observations which contradict our mathematical calculations. Most of the recorded dates, positions and durations of eclipses recorded in antiquity are in "error." Modern astronomers normally "correct" the time, or place of the ancient observation to make it conform with our modern "valid" computer calculations. The records of the ancients should cast some doubt on the assumptions that underlie our mathematical formulas.

Astronomers analyze the evidence they gather with their assumptions. There is one assumption that is so important that it is never discussed. It is protected at all cost from examination. All Westerners hold it more devotedly than a religion. Few are aware of its existence. Astronomers invent a big bang, dark matter, black holes, a universe where space-time expands - but galaxies do not, and the red shift - distance relation. All of these theories protect them from ever facing this tiny little assumption. Who invented the assumption? Aristotle found a solution to the problem of change that had troubled the philosophers for close to three centuries. Modern people do not question or even test the assumption. If the assumption were false, all mathematical theories about beginnings would utterly fail. If the assumption were false, measurements of the stars could NOT explain the size or age of the universe.

The whole universe is whispering that the assumption is false. Even though the whisper from the universe is consistent and transcends human language, no one listens. No one hears because the whisper is drowned by all the noise. The great cacophony comes from all those praising the emperor's clothes. No one seems to notice that the emperor (science itself) has no clothes. Isn't that crazy talk? If the fundamental assumption were false - science would still appear impregnable in all short term calculations. None of the marvels of science would fail if the fundamental assumption were false. Yet all stories about beginnings and far away things would ALL FAIL if the assumption were false. Think about it! What idea did Aristotle invent that closes the modern mind to analyzing the evidence in the simplest way?

Think about that asteroid, Eros! It looks like the fractured crust of a planet. Why is it so hard to believe that people saw a great planet shattered? Isn't it because the evidence is not allowed to contradict the modern world view? Isn't Eros's history simpler if you just throw out the dogma of the Western way of thinking? The Western mind is wired to only think of physical reality according to Aristotle's dogma. This wiring is done in our schools where we learn to ONLY think Aristotle's way. The archaic people who wrote about the planet wars could not think the way we do because it had not yet been invented. Throwing out the assumption does not mean you throw out the evidence. The answer is simpler without the dogma (Occam's Razor). If you drop the first article of faith, you see why all mathematical solutions of the universe fail. Think about it! Eros and the archaeoastronomers may be telling you something.

Copyright 2000 Victor McAllister
Latest Revision February 5, 2004

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