CompuServe Messages

Greetings David >> I have been thinking about your catastrophe model.<< Great! It needs all the help it can get. The one with an object 10 solar masses about 2 AU away.<< 2 AU from the sun but it may have come within 1.25 to 1.5 AU of the earth and Mars and much closer to the planet that was where the asteroid belt is now. >>The tidal force of the sun right now is too weak to form continents, right. Using inverse cube law (applicable to tidal forces), the tidal strength of your object is only 1.25 times the current tidal force of the sun. No rock will splinter with that!<< If it came within 1 AU of earth then the force would be 10 times what earth normally has. How does this look to you? The distortion of the shape of the crust even a tiny bit would cause the fracturing. >> Using the The monopole part, which changes orbits, would be (for your object) 2.5 times the current pull of the sun. The earth would change orbits drastically, but not the earth's shape. Similar analysis shows that almost any object more than a few earth diameters away could not change the shape of the earth in any significant fashion, and close collisions would drastically change the orbit. << I think the overall mass of the earth moon system increased a tiny bit and the orbital time increased also from 360 days to the current. With all this in mind what do you think the sequence needs to be? I see something like this. The star approaches reaching closest as it enters the orbit of the asteroid belt. The earth is slowed a bit while it becomes rerouted toward the star. As it is pulled outward the south pole at the time was somewhere in mid pacific. The swirling oceans and mud first swirled off the pole. Then the crust having been fractured at the old equator completley wrenched off like the skin of a ripe fruit. It pulled with it liquid metals from the earths interior. This put the inner core out of balance and caused the tumbling and rapid magnetic reversals. The removed crust or Moon closed around the metals leaving the mascons and Mares on one side. The earth still attracted by the passing star now begins to accelerate back up to and past the original orbital speed. The star at high speed doesn't capture the earth or moon and they settle into the current orbit. So any help with a set of logistics that would produce this event would be appreciated. I have also considered a huge meteor as the source of the catastrophe but there is so much catastrophe evident in the solar system a huge stellar interloper seams to solve the problem better.