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Catastrophic Origins for Asteroids and Rings of Saturn

12 September 2017
Astronomy

William Thompson had the paper published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly some years ago. The paper, 'Catastrophic Origins for the Asteroids and Rings of Saturn' was written and published some time ago but is back in vogue now as the Cassini Mission has shown the rings of Saturn have an origin much more recent than uniformitarians previously had considered. This article can be obtained from the author. If you go via the contact email address at our web site, www.sis-group.org.uk/contact/ and leave your name and email address a copy of the article can be sent to you (by post).

Basically, he suggests several different mechanisms were at work in the formation of the asteroid belt and the rings of Saturn. The initial mechanism in each one could well have been the catastrophic gravitational break-up of an astronomical body, a) in the case of the asteroid belt, a rocky planet, and b) in the case of the rings, an icy satellite or incoming object containing large quantities of liquid water and ice. Additional mechanisms for the formation and evolution of the asteroid belts may well be collisions as postulated by Chapman and Davis (1974), and Wiesel (1974).

Thompson has shown there is adequate evidence to suggest an initial condition which allowed the break-up of an astronomical body to create the mini satellites around Saturn. Subsequent resonance could well be provided by the gravitational influence of the inner satellites of Saturn as well as by the hypothetical longitude dependent part of Saturn's gravitational field as discussed by Allan (1967).

It seems that what goes round comes back round. The article may not have the benefit of the Cassini Mission but it is in keeping with discoveries by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

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