In time immemorial, between Mars and Jupiter there was another planet that was split into pieces as a result of some kind of cataclysm. Now in the place of its former orbit is the asteroid belt. Echoes of that cosmic catastrophe were preserved in the legends of many peoples, in particular in the ancient Greek myth of Phaethon. Many scientists, ufologists, esotericists, science fiction writers believe that a highly developed civilization flourished on Phaethon.
Asteroid hunt
For a long time astronomers wondered why the gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is so great. By all accounts, there must be another planet. This hypothesis was put forward by Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. And 100 years after him, the German astronomers Johann Daniel Titius and Johann Elert Bode found a pattern in the arrangement of the planets of the solar system and proposed a simple rule that makes it easy to determine the distance of any of them to the Sun.
How to do it? You need to write a series of numbers: 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, in which each, starting from the third number, is twice the previous one. Then add 4 to the numbers of this row and also put a four in front. You get a new row: 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100, 196.
Now you should divide all these numbers by 10 and you get fairly accurate distances of the planets from the Sun (if we count the distance from the Earth of our star as one astronomical unit): 0.4 - Mercury; 0.7 - Venus; 1 - Earth; 1.6 - Mars; 2.8 -?; 5.2 - Jupiter; 10-Saturn; 19.6 -? (this is Uranus, at that time not yet discovered).
But when in 1781 William Herschel discovered Uranus at a distance from the Sun corresponding to the Titius-Bode formula, many astronomers believed in the truth of this numerical pattern - and began to search for the missing planet between Mars and Jupiter.
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Many were looking for it, but it was discovered quite by accident on New Year's Eve in 1801 by the director of the observatory in Palermo (Sicily) Giuseppe Piazzi. This celestial body, called Ceres, moved exactly in an orbit corresponding to the rule of Titius - Bode.
True, he was embarrassed by the too weak brilliance of the "newly baptized", who said that between Mars and Jupiter, a very tiny little one was circling, much inferior to other planets of the solar system (only 960 kilometers in diameter). But a year later, the doctor and amateur astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers discovered at a distance of 2.8 astronomical units from the Sun the same little Pallas.
Subsequently, Juno, Vesta, Astrea were found. Then astronomers realized that there are many small asteroid planets in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, and they discovered a real hunt for them. By the beginning of the 20th century, more than 300 minor planets were recorded and described, and by 2011 there were already 285 thousand of them. But only 19 thousand have names.
Ceres and Vesta
All this "space debris" pushes in the space between Mars and Jupiter. But the paths of some asteroids have become quite bizarre under the planetary influence. For example, Eros goes into the orbit of Mars, Cupid, Ganymede, Hermes and Apollo into the orbits of Mercury and Venus, and Icarus almost reaches the Sun, and every 19 years it passes close to our planet.
But still, if you put together the pieces of this cosmic puzzle, you get a planet that is not inferior in size to Mars and Earth, and possibly even surpass them.
How did Phaethon die?
What monstrous force destroyed Phaeton (if, of course, he really existed)?
Heinrich Olbers suggested that the fifth planet was in a gravitationally unstable orbit in the zone of simultaneous influence of the gravitational field of Jupiter and the Sun - and the tidal forces literally tore it apart.
The writer Anatoly Mitrofanov developed this version in the novel On the Tenth Planet (1960), suggesting that the highly developed civilization of the Faetians, which made an unsuccessful attempt to curb the dangerously increased volcanic activity caused by the instability of the planet's core under the influence of the tidal forces of Jupiter, was largely responsible for the death of Phaethon.
According to the hypothesis of the geologist Igor Ryazanov, 4.5 billion years ago (500-600 million after the beginning of the formation of the solar system), a body the size of our Moon, having flown from deep space, crashed into Phaeton, splitting it into many asteroids. This version was supported by many other scientists.
The writer Alexander Kazantsev in the novel "Faetias" said that the ancient planet of Faena died as a result of a nuclear war that caused the oceans to explode. Only members of interplanetary expeditions survived, who created colonies on Mars and Earth.
As a variant of this hypothesis, there is an assumption that the civilization of Phaethon was at war with the civilization of Mars. After an exchange of powerful nuclear strikes, the Red Planet became lifeless, and Phaeton completely collapsed. This version is supported by the famous astrophysicist John Brandenburg, who stated that the death of life on Mars was caused by two powerful nuclear strikes from space millions of years ago.
The Soviet astronomer Felix Siegel suggested that Mars, Moon and Phaethon once made up a three-planetary system with a common orbit around the Sun. Phaethon's catastrophe turned it into asteroids and upset the balance of the three bodies. Mars and the Moon entered orbits closer to the Sun and began to heat up.
At the same time, the smaller Moon lost its entire atmosphere, Mars - most of it. Later, the Moon passed dangerously close to the Earth and was captured by it.
However, many scientists denied the existence of Phaeton. For example, the Soviet academician Otto Schmidt and his followers believed that asteroids were only the embryos of planets, a building material that could not be stitched into a single whole due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter.
Lucy McFadden, an astronomer from the University of Maryland, agrees with them. In her opinion, Ceres is a planetary "embryo" that stopped in its development due to the influence of the powerful gravitational field of Jupiter, which did not allow it to collect the required amount of matter to turn into a full-sized planet.
A star named Jupiter
There is another incredibly bold hypothesis. According to her, billions of years ago there were two luminaries in our system - Jupiter and the Sun. Both of them influenced the orbits of the planets, with Phaethon and Mars being predominantly part of the planetary system of the star Jupiter.
A highly developed technocratic civilization existed on Phaeton, successfully overcoming the "nuclear threshold" in its development, subjugating the mighty forces of nature, entering outer space and creating colonies on Mars, Earth, Venus, gradually transforming these planets into habitable ones.
But over time, irreversible processes developed on Jupiter, and it burst into a supernova, first expanding almost to the orbit of Phaeton, and then "shrinking" to the current size of a gas giant, which is gradually cooling down. A colossal surge of energy fell on Phaeton, splitting it into pieces.
All the planets of the binary stars were torn from their orbits. Mars, Earth and Venus were especially affected, on which all living things were destroyed. Fortunately, the members of the interstellar expeditions of the Faetians survived, who by that time were already inhabiting the planets discovered in the systems of Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Deneb, Lyra.
Millions of years later, when the consequences of a colossal cosmic catastrophe subsided, they returned to their ancestral home, now only the solar system, and found that planet Earth is quite suitable for development. Now she has acquired a satellite - the Moon, in which the Faetians identified the core of their home planet.
Interestingly, in the 3rd century BC, the chief caretaker of the Alexandria library, Apollonius Rodius, wrote that there was a time when the moon did not exist in the earth's sky. The scientist received this information by rereading the most ancient manuscripts, which were then burned down together with the library.
South African Bushmen myths also say that before the flood, only stars lit the night sky. There is no information about the Moon in the most ancient Mayan chronicles.
These ancient sources are echoes of the knowledge of the terrestrial civilization of the Faetians, which reached the highest development, but destroyed, ironically, by a fragment of their home planet - a large asteroid that collided with the Earth. After that, humanity (its surviving remains) was thrown into a primitive state - and was forced to start all over again.
Valery NIKOLAEV