THE SOLAR SYSTEM OF M. Ya.
Marov
Transcript of Alexander Gordon's speech in the program on 8.09.03 (according to the text of the website http://www.gordon.ru/konkurssite/030908st.html) Participant: Mikhail Yakovlevich Marov Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Marov: The topic you invited me to talk about is extremely capacious, and it is difficult to cover in more or less detail various aspects of this multifaceted problem in the foreseeable future.
First of all, of course, the question arises: why should we study the Solar System, maybe we are comfortable enough on our own planet?
I have heard, and relatively recently, from some colleagues who are even burdened with certain scientific titles, this: why do we need this at all?
we have a lot of earthly problems, so let's focus on the Earth first of all.
In this situation, I have to answer based on completely obvious provisions.
First of all, we (I mean our country) are a civilized nation, at least we consider ourselves to be such, and we must engage in science, we must learn what is in our immediate environment.
Secondly – we cannot consider the Earth one of the planets of the Solar system in isolation.
We do not exist in isolation, we are too dependent on the whole environment, which is called the Cosmos.
And finally, as it always happens in science, what today seems to be just a kind of satisfaction of curiosity, in the future becomes key for the further development of mankind, for its progress.
So, speaking conceptually, first of all, we need to know – how did it all work out, how did the Solar system come about, how did it evolve?
Secondly – we should try to answer the question of what distinguished the Earth from those nine planets that we traditionally call large planets, leaving aside Pluto, since Pluto currently has the status of a planet purely historically, being a very large body in the zan Neptune belt, comet asteroid belt.
Therefore, I repeat, it is necessary to understand what distinguished the Earth, and, studying the Earth in a comparative planetary aspect, to give answers to many key questions that geology, climatology, geochemistry and so on are engaged in.
That is, it is necessary to extrapolate, generalize, or something, this data for the entire
the scientific field that has passed a certain evolutionary path in its development.
And from this point of view, the primary interest, if you will, in the consumer sense, for a better understanding of the Earth are the two models that are closest to us – Venus, from the side closer to the Sun, and Mars, located in the opposite direction.
These planets are removed from the Earth on a cosmic scale by negligible distances.
Venus is 0.3 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is 150 million kilometers), and Mars is one and a half times farther from the Sun than our Earth.
So, these are two extreme models that are decidedly not similar to the Earth, and accordingly nature itself has given us the opportunity to study them and understand due to what evolutionary path they have become so strikingly different from the Earth.
Finally, there is one more aspect, and maybe even two.
The third aspect that I would highlight is, of course, an understanding of how life on Earth originated, was the Earth itself the cradle of life?
In the ideas of some people, there is a kind of earthly "chauvinism", which consists in the assertion that life could only have arisen on Earth.
But maybe this is a more common phenomenon?
And we can say that the Earth is not an exception, but is one of the harbors of life – we will not talk now about whether it is primitive or more highly developed.
Finally, the last aspect that I would like to mention is that we should think about the progressive development of humanity.
Let's think about what successes we have achieved in just half a century, less than half a century.
After we went into space, at one time we did not think that we would be able to view various bodies of the Solar System in close proximity, put spacecraft there, and conduct even more complex studies.
So, we must think that humanity will somehow come to start flying to these celestial bodies.
And I deeply believe that we should not think that this will happen in 100 years or in a millennium.
If humanity is destined to survive, if all kinds of environmental, social and other disasters do not destroy us.
For example, there is a well known formula of Francis Drake for calculating the number of potentially possible highly developed industrial civilizations.
So, if the multiplier in the Drake formula, which corresponds to the duration of the existence of a high tech civilization, is favorable in the case of the Earth, then we can expect that there will be a kind of, in a good sense, expansion of humanity both within the Solar System and, possibly, outside it.
That is, humanity can consider the Solar system, and not just the Earth, as its legitimate, natural home.
Actually, these are probably the four main criteria that we rely on when we talk about research in this extremely interesting area.
I must say that I was probably very lucky in my life, because I did not come to this field immediately, not from the student's bench, it turned out through several different stages of my personal biography.
But, one way or another, I happened to conduct various experiments on our spacecraft.
And, I repeat, it is probably a happy fate that I found the era of our cosmic heyday, when we were really ahead of everyone, when we received very significant, very significant results.
When, as they say, "hands were shaking", when we received the information that is not yet known to mankind.
You can imagine the excitement that a person feels when he discovers something really new.
So, we received this new one in the experimental part.
And I repeat, my closest colleagues and I were very, very lucky that we found that era.
It is now that we are very far behind, we will not talk now about all sorts of reasons that led to this.
But we really deserve quite a certain recognition, because in
to a large extent, they were pioneers in this area.
But at the same time, I had a chance to work a lot on various kinds of mathematical models that are designed to generalize, combine various information that comes in, and look at it more broadly, try to rethink certain theoretical concepts that originally existed.
You mentioned some books, in particular, about the concept of Asimov.
So they rest on our data, reflecting the epoch of the beginning of our deep penetration into the Solar System, which we now call reconnaissance.
So, by the end of the last century, after very successful flights, in particular, flights to the far Solar system of Voyager, Galileo, before that Pioneers, our eyes were opened, we really learned a lot.
And now absolutely crazy results are obtained both on Mars and on small bodies.
We have the opportunity to land vehicles... not us, but the Americans, but by " we " I mean humanity.
We are landing vehicles on small bodies, we are talking about launching satellites around these small bodies.
And, for example, NEAR Shoemaker – the so called device for studying asteroids approaching the Earth - has already practically done it.
And after it became a satellite, it landed on the surface of this asteroid, I mean the asteroid Eros.
By the way, a very small asteroid.
It has the shape of a potato, the maximum size is about 35 kilometers, and the other two sizes are 8 each.
So, a spacecraft descends on this body, not just photographs it when approaching, but conducts research on the surface.
And again, let's return to mathematical models, to models that generalize these data.
For example, extrapolating the area that NEAR is exploring, we can say that the number of small craters on this asteroid corresponds to a figure (if taken with a threshold of about 15-20 meters) of the order of 100 thousand.
This immediately gives an idea of the extremely important dynamic processes that we have in the Solar System.
That is, this collision is a very strong modification of the substance, its processing as a result of such a meteor bombardment – and so on, and so on.
So, the direction that I have been engaged in for many years (and now it has probably become the main one in my activity, since experiments are very limited) is a kind of mechanics of natural space environments.
And a lot of things fall into this category – this is the development of various models related to multicomponent radiation hydrodynamics, this is a rarefied gas, these are turbulent processes in various kinds of continuous media involving kinetic processes.
That is, the study of the feedback between hydrodynamics and chemical kinetics.
This is essentially a completely new direction, which, let me say, we have been developing quite successfully for about the last two decades.
Therefore, these models greatly stimulate experimental research.
And this incentive is largely due to the fact that not only new opportunities are opening up, which I mentioned in terms of space technology, in terms of using spacecraft to achieve the most ambitious goals, perhaps.
At least in the near future, these goals are, for example, such as tracking a comet with the help of a spacecraft, and tracing the entire evolution associated with the sublimation of gas as it approaches the Sun.
This is an absolutely fantastic thing, it's not just some individual fragments of information during a rapid flight near the comet, it's really its support for, according to some preliminary forecasts, maybe a year, maybe a year and a half.
This is a very long time – of course, not in the geological sense, but it is a very long time to trace such an evolution.
So, on the one hand, there is an absolutely colossal prospect and the progress already being observed in space technology.
In parallel with this, absolutely
colossal, new results that are obtained with the help of ground based instruments.
Ground based astronomical instruments give us the opportunity now to do something that was once absolutely unthinkable.
For example, as a vivid example, we can call the study of the rings of Uranus.
By the way, just in passing: all the planet giants have rings, and rings of different configurations.
The most famous example is the rings of Saturn, which has many systems of them.
By the way, there are up to thousands of small rings in each of these visible rings, and this is due, in particular, to the dynamics of the behavior of these rings near a cosmic body.
A significant number of these rings, as it is now shown on the screen, are supported by satellites that are located in the vicinity of this ring.
And it is no coincidence that they are called shepherd satellites, they seem to graze those particles that make up the ring.
So, apart from Saturn, I repeat, all the planets Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune – also have their own ring systems with their own remarkable and specific properties.
Let's say that Uranus has very narrow rings, 9 rings, extremely narrow and very thin.
Neptune has rings that do not add up to a single system, but are separate arcs.
This is due to the fact that there is a smearing of particles that exist at different distances, with different speeds – particles orbiting around the body.
And they do not have the opportunity to connect into a single ring, because there is a system of resonances from the satellite, and this resonant phenomenon is reflected in the form of such discontinuous rings.
There are a lot of examples of such things.
So, I repeat, this was at the beginning of outstanding achievements in terrestrial astronomy.
And now these successes are generally grandiose.
For example, over the past few years, a huge number of satellites have been discovered one after another in the vicinity of giant planets, again.
In general, the discovery of a satellite has always been a grand event.
At one time, the Voyagers, American spacecraft, consistently flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Somewhere around, in my opinion, 2015, they should go to the periphery of the Solar System, cross the area that is associated with the influx of solar plasma on interstellar gas, where a kind of shock wave is formed.
This, by the way,is also a very interesting thing to explore.
The Voyagers discovered a large number of new satellites from all these planets while flying past them, and the discovery of each satellite was an event.
So, we thought, let's say, that Jupiter has 17 moons, Saturn has 18.
And over the past few years, we have learned that Jupiter has about 40 of them, and Saturn has 32.
Now we have received completely new information: Neptune, the most distant planet in the Solar System, has also discovered three new satellites, and this was done not with the help of spacecraft, but with the help of the so called PZMATRIX.
It has a very high sensitivity and is installed on moderate sized telescopes.
This is a huge progress that allows us to greatly expand our understanding of the Solar System.
And finally, mathematical modeling.
It is stimulated not only by this new flow of knowledge – you always need to rely on something when you build a model, and not just strain the gray matter and use the qualifications that you have received during your scientific life.
It is very important to have very good tools at the same time.
And in this case, the tools are, of course, excellent computers, which have now become a familiar tool.
And now we can calculate those models that were previously absolutely unable to count (for example, I mentioned chemical kinetics, which is associated with hydrodynamic processes).
This has become possible precisely because we can use teraflop level machines.
This is, of course, a grandiose achievement.
I feel that I may have gotten a little carried away with this general aspect.
Alexander Gordon: You have told us about how rich and wide the tools are today, what wonderful discoveries are being made with it.
But I
I would like to build a further conversation, if you allow, in this way: "Before we thought that... now we know that..."
Because the Solar system, in general, is quite a deceptive thing.
Knowing from the school curriculum about the achievements of Copernicus, we, one way or another, throughout our lives, receiving some information, we build our own Solar System for ourselves.
It is quite similar to others – all systems are similar to each other – but it turns out that we do not know some things that are basic, fundamental in this system.
M. M.
I will allow myself, Alexander, given the lack of time, to answer your question somewhat schematically.
Let's say we had an absolutely vague idea about our nearest neighbors, I started with this.
So, Venus – when the first spacecraft were launched, we did not know what pressure these vehicles could count on.
I remember very well the first discussion with the chief designer of the Lavochkin battery, Georgy Nikolaevich Babakin, who passed away very early, to whose memory I dedicated one of my books.
We discussed what pressure can be on the surface.
A. G.
What hypotheses were there?
M. M.
The hypotheses were as follows: from 0.5 atmospheres to a thousand, roughly speaking.
Therefore, Babakin made, I would say, a general's decision, he said: "we will build at 15. "
And, as it turned out, at an altitude of 23 kilometers at a pressure, however, of 18 atmospheres (this was a design reserve), we were crushed.
That is, the pressure on the surface turned out to be 92 atmospheres.
We did not imagine this.
Although there were already ideas about the temperature according to radio astronomy data – ambiguous, but, nevertheless, they existed: that the temperature on the surface is about 500 degrees, to be more precise, 470 degrees Celsius.
Further, carbon dioxide is a terribly inhospitable environment.
About what is on the surface, what kind of relief, there were no ideas at all.
We had a very vague idea of what this surface hides.
This is not only a dense atmosphere, but also clouds, which also turned out to be exotic: they are composed of sulfuric acid of about 85 percent concentration.
This, by the way, forced us to work very seriously in terms of technology so that the parachutes could withstand such conditions.
Phenomena on the surface.
We now know that Venus has a fairly young surface, that there, apparently, quite recently in the geological sense (this is tens, hundreds, maybe millions of years, which is incomparable with the age of the Solar system at 4 and a half billion years), volcanic activity ended, and maybe even continues.
And so on, you can talk about Venus extremely much.
So, this is a completely new view of this planet, and we (I have already talked about mathematical models) have been doing a lot about what caused such processes, such are the current conditions on Venus.
As for the so called irreversible greenhouse effect, what causes it, how did the planet evolve?
We think that Venus originally had a fairly powerful ocean, but due to the initial stages of evolution, this ocean was lost.
And there is some evidence that supports such a model, such a hypothesis.
Mars.
The Mars Express, a European Space Agency vehicle, has now been launched.
The Mars Sorweyer and Mars Odyssey, American spacecraft, are successfully working in orbit, they have given a lot of new information.
My colleague Bruce Yanovsky once wrote: "I thought I knew everything about Mars, but it turned out,"he said in 2001," that I know very, very little."
So, we now have quite a lot of evidence that there is probably water on Mars, which mainly seems to exist in the subsurface
the layer is close enough to the surface.
And this is not just the detection of real evidence of the presence of water with the help of neutron monitors that are still flying on the Mars Odyssey ,and we are very proud that one of these devices is ours, Russian.
But it detects water exclusively in a thin layer of about one meter.
By the way, this is also a separate conversation, and very interesting.
After all, the presence of hydrogen, not water, is determined.
And there are some variations, both seasonal and longitude latitude variations.
This is due to the fact that there are certain new ideas about the mineral composition of the surface, because hydrogen is bound not only in water, it is also bound in hydrotated minerals.
In addition, we know that there is a huge amount of ice stored in the polar caps of Mars, if my memory does not change, it is tens of millions of cubic kilometers.
But if it is evenly poured over the surface, then it will only be a layer, maybe 25-30 meters.
But, of course, there is much more water on Mars.
By the way, estimates show that only a few meters of such a water layer could have been lost due to dissipation, escape.
The question is: where is the rest of the water?
Apparently, it is in the subsurface layer.
And now there is vivid geological evidence that this water is located quite close.
There are not only old dried up riverbeds, but also configurations such as gullies, which show that water is being carried out from the inside.
Moreover, again, the models show that already at a depth of several hundred meters, up to a kilometer, there are already quite warm conditions, and there may be liquid water there.
By the way, I talked about this in one of my books, also somewhere in the 80s.
We once discussed these issues very violently with an absolutely excellent specialist, planetary scientist Carl Sagan.
So, these ideas are now supported by real data.
This is the change in our view of the Solar System that you are asking me about.
And finally, if there is liquid water there, and we see this evidence, then there is a much greater probability of actually detecting living organisms on Mars.
Here is a meteorite that was found in Antarctica, ALH 80001, this is a shergotite meteorite, which is a certain evidence of the presence of life.
But the debate continues: is this evidence of the bioproduction of organisms, or is it still just some kind of organic matter.
For example, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are found there.
By the way, these finds are nanometre in size, and there were objections that there are no such things on Earth.
This is not true, there are such formations on Earth, these are some kind of fossils.
A. G. Fossils.
M. M. Yes, fossils.
And in this sense, we can say that, after all, it seems that the biogenic origin of these finds is more likely.
This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that sulfur compounds coexist there together with hematites, that is, with glandular formations, and so on.
A. G.
But organics does not mean life.
M. M.
I mean "biogenic origin", this means that they are produced precisely due to such processes.
But the riddles continue, do not think that everything became clear to us immediately.
Yes, we are talking about the fact that there is a high probability of meeting life there.
For me, it is extremely interesting that a paleomagnetic field has been discovered on Mars.
That is, Mars had a sufficiently strong magnetic field when it still apparently had a sufficiently powerful liquid core.
Because we proceed from the ideas about the need for a dynamo mechanism for the formation of a magnetic field, its occurrence and maintenance.
So, these traces of the magnetic field are not evenly distributed across the planet, and
this may also have an explanation.
Different regions may have been heated differently and passed the so called Curie point, where complete demagnetization occurs.
But in certain places, these traces have been preserved.
And the correlation of magnetic field traces with hematites is very interesting.
What is hematite?
This is a well known rust.
How is rust formed from ferrous compounds?
In the presence of water (again, water!) and the presence of oxygen.
But at the same time, on Mars, colossal spaces are formed by minerals such as feldspar and pyroxenes.
These are very well known igneous rocks.
But take the example of Hawaii: freshly ignited lava turns into clays within a few years in the presence of water and oxygen.
If hematites are formed on Mars (and I said under what conditions it can be), then why are such non oxidized primordial rocks preserved there?
This is one of the mysteries.
And the examples can be continued.
Again, we knew absolutely nothing about the outer regions of the Solar System, we had very vague ideas.
The most complete surprise, the discovery was the presence of the most powerful volcanism on Io.
It is one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter.
By the way, all these four Galilean satellites are located between the Moon and Mercury in size.
So, the most powerful volcanism on Io, where about a dozen active volcanoes are constantly observed.
And there are estimated to be about 500 such volcanoes in total, and this is on a body smaller than the Moon!
That is, volcanism on Io is much more powerful than on Earth.
How is it supported?
Tidal influences.
The fact is that there is a certain synchronization of orbits.
For four turns of Io, Europa turns twice, and the largest – Ganymede only once.
And this attraction in the powerful gravitational field of Jupiter creates a colossal tidal effect, the dissipation of this tidal energy leads to a powerful heating of the subsurface.
We didnot know anything about this before.
The next one is Europe.
Europe turned out to be no less interesting.
And it is no coincidence that a flight of one of the vehicles is now planned for it, this issue is being seriously discussed in the American NASA.
A. G.
The flight is almost with landing and drilling.
M. M.
It is absolutely true, with landing and drilling.
By the way, this is also visible in one of our projects.
So, Europe, apparently, has a fairly powerful water ocean, perhaps with a sufficiently high salinity.
And there is practically no atmosphere there.
Therefore, there must be a thick ice crust.
We see evidence of this fracturing, the most powerful troughs that run along the surface and are more or less periodically updated with fresh ice.
That is, these are exits, these are cracks.
Moreover, there are some disordered structures there, and this is due to the fact that during rotation this liquid layer lags behind the rotation of the central core.
That is, it turns out, generally speaking, a very interesting pattern, quite easily explained from a physical standpoint.
But the most interesting thing is that there is some kind of hydrothermal process there, perhaps there are what are called "black smokers" that are found in our oceans.
That is, there is a supply all the time.
And we know that bacteria feel good in black smokers, they simply tolerate hydrothermal, superthermal temperatures in the most magnificent way.
A. G.
There is a whole fauna there ...
M. M. Absolutely for sure.
There are temperatures above the boiling point.
By the way, if I have already mentioned this – there is absolutely clear evidence that there is a biosphere at a great depth in the Earth.
This is the so called deep biosphere.
And on
It is estimated that the amount of biomass that is present at depths up to, perhaps, several kilometers, is comparable to what we have on the surface.
A. G.
This is perfect news for me.
M. M.
And this shows our narrow mindedness, the limitations of our ideas.
And since this is a deep biosphere, it does not need a photosynthetic process.
Three factors are necessary for life: energy, nutrition and necessarily breathing.
Food, respiration – metabolism.
So, in the case of photosynthesis, everything is clear, we are used to this.
And the deep biosphere, in all probability, is supported by chemical, hydrothermal processes.
Various solutions that exist at depths, due to chemical processes, primarily exothermic reactions, support this energy part.
So, on Europe, perhaps, we have these processes.
By the way, these concepts can be extended further.
They are extremely interesting from the point of view of the possibility of life on other planets, not only on Mars or on Europa.
So, on Europa, we have, generally speaking, a very high probability of the presence of life in this ocean.
A. G.
Does Europe have a magnetic field?
M. M. Is small.
And this, by the way, is additional evidence that there is a salty ocean there, without it the magnetic field would not exist.
And you know, we have an exceptionally interesting thing.
I return to what I briefly mentioned – the question of life.
I was talking about life on Mars, I was talking about migration and collision processes in the Solar System, these collision processes are extremely important.
If I have time, I will say two more words about this.
So, the fact is that different matter, different bodies fall on the planets all the time.
Again, this was unknown to us.
We lived blinded and said: "all this is there, this does not concern us."
Concerns.
It is much easier to deliver matter from Mars or from the Moon to Earth than vice versa – the masses are different, the escape velocity is different.
So, the origin of the meteorite LLH 800001 is associated with Mars, to a large extent because of the unique isotopic composition of the atmosphere, traces of which are present in this meteorite.
A. G.
And due to which he was ejected from Mars?
M. M.
It was released, in all probability, due to the powerful impact of the asteroid, these processes are constantly taking place.
This kind of bombardment is constantly happening, look at the moon, look at Mars.
On Earth, this is more or less erased by the hydrosphere and the biosphere.
That is, there are craters of different composition, different ages, and eroded to varying degrees everywhere.
The fall of a sufficiently large asteroid can knock out this substance.
As a result, we have a constant exchange of matter between the planets.
This is very interesting the transport of the substance, the carrier of which is these ejected debris.
And if this is so, then we come to a very interesting conclusion: maybe life did not originate on Earth, but on Mars and was brought to Earth from Mars?
We canot answer this question.
Why did I say this when I was talking about Europe?
Yes, simply because Europe is more interesting in this sense.
It is much more difficult to deliver something to Europa than to any of the planets of the so called Earth group.
Here's the thing.
Let's say we find life on Mars, some primitive forms at the level of bacteria, even prokaryotes, hardly eukaryotes with a nucleus.
If we find such biological forms, such primitive life, I donot think that it will be very different from Earth, simply because such an exchange should have taken place.
And Europe is absolutely unique in this sense
object.
From this point of view, Titanium is of exceptional interest to me, because there are quite complex hydrocarbons there – the original, primitive organic matter, which apparently lacked something to make the transition from inanimate to living matter.
What is life?
Life is replication, it is primarily systems that are able to exchange information and transfer it.
In my opinion, this is obvious.
But it's easy to say that, and the Nobel laureate Francis Crick once said that it was absolutely incredible for him.
More positive is another Nobel laureate – Christian De Duve, who said that life is, from his point of view, a "cosmic imperative".
It is very interesting.
And from this point of view, we can expect that we can still find some traces.
But again, it is necessary to distract from the earthly, so to speak, chauvinism.
I still think that it is hardly possible to imagine life originating on one such body – the probability is too small.
But if this probability is multiplied by the number of planetary systems that are now being discovered very quickly by other stars, then the probability increases very much.
By the way, the fears that living matter cannot withstand exposure to harsh radiation in space for millions of years are very much, from my point of view, overstated.
A little protection is enough against this danger.
The danger is only a direct hit to the core, which is extremely unlikely.
Because there is a difference of about six orders of magnitude between an atom and a nucleus – therefore, the probability of nuclear destruction is very small.
And from this point of view, I consider the hypothesis of panspermia, expressed by Sventus Arrhenius at the end of the last century, as very seriously worthy of attention.
And finally, since there is not much time left, I would like to say just a few words about the fact that we had absolutely no idea about the complex ring system of all the other planets: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
We didnot know about such a large number of satellites, we only knew the main ones.
We did not know about the extremely interesting dynamics of processes in the atmosphere of Jupiter.
A. G.
I wanted to ask a question.
What became known after the fall of fragments of comet Shoemaker on Jupiter?
M. M.
You know, the planet is too energy intensive to affect it in this way.
But the fact itself is interesting: in the powerful gravitational field of Jupiter, a comet was destroyed, which, apparently, was initially captured somewhere in the 30s, then existed, approaching Jupiter, and finally tidal forces were torn into 22, if I'm not mistaken, fragments.
And they consistently fell into the atmosphere.
I happened to see some of these events.
And you know, this is, of course, a grandiose spectacle: after all, Jupiter is 330 times larger by mass than the Earth.
A. G.
And by volume how much?
M. M.
By volume is about the same, because the density of Jupiter is about one.
Jupiter is 10 times the size of the Earth, a little more than 10 times.
So, this powerful gravitational field attracts a body to itself, it enters the atmosphere at a much higher speed than the Earth's atmosphere.
The largest of the fragments was, in my opinion, about one and a half kilometers in size, this is a process of a million megaton bombs.
And, of course, the body cannot remain indifferent, this is a powerful disturbance.
It drags on for several days, maybe weeks, that is, eventually the atmosphere relaxes, comes to a normal state.
But the dynamics of these processes are extremely interesting.
We see grandiose cyclones and anticyclones, and they exist for a long time.
And, by the way, it is very interesting to compare these processes taking into account other masses, other
energy relations.
It turns out that if we have an average duration of a cyclone or anticyclone – a week or two, then their duration on Jupiter is tens of thousands of years.
And this, in particular, is evidenced by the large red spot.
By the way, a large black, dark spot was also found on Neptune, a very interesting configuration.
And this is largely due to the fact (this is again a discovery) that there is an internal powerful heat flow from the bowels, which significantly exceeds what such a planet receives from the Sun, exceeds several times.
I mentioned Pluto.
Pluto is a quasi planet, its diameter is about two and a half thousand kilometers.
And this is probably one of the largest bodies in the so called Edgeworth Kuiper Belt.
This is a belt that is located behind Neptune at a distance of 30 to about a thousand astronomical units.
Even further away, on the periphery of the Solar System, is the Aorta cloud.
Both from the aortic cloud and from the Kuiper Belt, bodies come to us, carriers of primary information about the early stages of the origin and evolution of the Solar System – comets.
Exceptional but interesting bodies.
By the way, we are doing quite a lot in our department, at the institute, with these bodies both from the point of view of mechanics and from the point of view of physics, we are developing various numerical models.
So, Pluto... you know, it's interesting that every celestial body in the Solar system has its own characteristics, I tried to mention them somehow.
But now I really want to say about Pluto.
Pluto has a huge size – in comparison with the body itself the satellite Charon.
And the peculiarity of this binary system is that Charon orbits at exactly the same distance as a geostationary satellite on Earth.
That is, you have a nature created, let's say, not a geo -, but a plutostationary satellite that looks at one point all the time, that is, the way we hang a satellite in a geostationary orbit specifically in order to clearly cover a certain area on Earth.
And finally, I promised to say a few words about very interesting things related to the fact that the Earth is not isolated from the rest of the Solar system.
These are constant processes of substance exchange, this is the loss of matter to the Earth.
There are a huge number of asteroids.
It is estimated that asteroids with a size of about one kilometer are about one hundred thousand, and this, of course, is a huge figure.
By the way, only 30 percent are listed in the catalogs.
Although the orbits are known for about 50 percent.
But it is necessary that the asteroid came more than once to accurately catalog the object.
So, it is very interesting that a significant part of the asteroids from the Kuiper Belt through an intermediate capture by Jupiter or directly migrate...
AG Collisions, changes in orbits...
MM, not even a collision, but just a perturbation.
I want to emphasize this emphatically.
The fact is that it is not necessary to consider the Solar System as a kind of frozen stationary formation.
This is a dynamic formation, to some extent, even such a concept as chaotic dynamics is well applicable to it.
Many bodies migrate through the Jupiter region (or directly) to the inner regions of the Solar System.
In particular, we proceed from the fact that such a process was strongest at the end of the period of the formation of giant planets, it is also called the period of maximum meteor bombardment, when thousands, tens of thousands of comets were thrown into the inner regions and bombarded the Earth, Venus, Mars.
By the way, the estimates of the brought matter for these planets are comparable.
And here there are two interesting problems...
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For communication: lazutin@srd.sinp.msu.ru, last updated on 9.10.03
