The Solar System Mechanics

No doubt many people do not think of the Solar system as a potential machine. There is little reason to do so until you study the working details of the system and try to break down each segment to see how it works. The two great names that successfully did that were Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. Mr. Kepler figured out the mechanics of orbiting objects setting forth his three laws that were very important to Isaac Newton's discovery of his Universal Laws of Gravitation. There is no need to recite their conclusions in this article so I will only comment that both of these gentlemen saw the Solar System as a form of mechanical operation that was capable of being understood and calculated. When you add mathematics to philosophy you have opinions that can be proven and documented as theirs were.

The key to it all is gravitation. The problem was how to explain the ability of gravitation to effect objects at a distance from the source. Einstein's thought was that space around a massive object was bent causing the space to shape itself like a bowl or cavity. This was one of his ideas that are considered a success when light from a source behind the sun was visible before it should be due to the curvature of the space by the Sun. The test results were less than perfect but it was hailed as partial proof of his theories. That idea does not further my discussion of the mechanics of the system so I will move on.

Newton did not know exactly how gravitation worked but he knew the effect of gravitation and he determined how to calculate the effect of an object in orbit around another object, some times referred to as the two-body system. Newton did not discover why the planets have the momentum to revolve around the Sun and he did not discover why the planet's and the satellites rotate on their axis as they do. I believe that the majority view is that the planets probably got their momentum as part of the origin of the Solar Systems construction. That makes sense if we add that the orbital velocity of the planets now is no longer as it was initially and that the source of power now is the gravitational effects of the object being orbited. This detail is part of the mechanical side of the system that I offer as part of my theories. Another ingredient is not so easy to grasp but is very important to our full understanding of how it works. Think of the Solar System as a disk with the center focus at the massive Sun. Every thing revolves around the Sun and it make no difference that the Sun itself is revolving around the Galaxy while it takes the rest of us along with it. Sometimes planets will be traveling ahead of the Sun but they hold their place and continue to revolve normally.

The Sun also rotates, and this is the tricky part, and, I contend, that it rotates its large massive gravitational field as the Sun rotates. Everything within the field is Carried along, planets, comets, satellites and what else may be out there. There is ample logic to support this idea. If the gravitational field worked like a phonograph record objects farther from the Sun would revolve faster that objects closer to the Sun. That is not the case. As the Sun's gravitation loses strength, due to distance, objects revolve slower. I like to think of this as a loss of density of the gravity resulting in some slippage as we get more distant form the Sun. Also, Newton showed us that you could determine the gravitational force of the Sun or a planet by its ability to revolve objects at higher speeds when it was more massive.

So, on this point I contend that the velocity of orbiting objects is maintained by the orbited objects gravitation sweeping it along as the gravitational field itself revolves with the rotating Sun or planet.

Newton felt that there was a mutual attraction of all objects of mass but as I have shown in my self-published book, Surfing the Solar System, the math does not demonstrate that result. By using a different method from Newton's to calculate a mass ratio based on the ability of a central object, such as the Sun, to revolve a planet, I was able to show that each space from the Sun out to the possible end of the Solar System would provide an object in that space with a specific velocity without regard to the mass of the orbiting object. It does not appear that the mass of the orbiting object had any effect on the final location of the orbit either and I note the largest planets were not drawn in towards the inner area of the system. To test this you can use my figure calculated for miles-mass of the Sun at 31,833,715,513.6 and divide by the mean orbital radius, in miles, of any planet and you will get the planets miles per second orbital velocity squared. # / 92,961,440 =342.44, 342.44^(1/2) = 18.5 miles per second. You can do this for all the planets using miles as your measure. The result is exactly what astronomers have observed except they like to use Kilometers. Take their data and multiply it by .62137 to reduce it to miles.

I have explained why the planets maintain their orbital velocity but not why the planets rotate as they do. The rotation of a planet as it revolves around the Sun is the product of the planets size; the planets mean orbital radius in miles and the orbital velocity in miles per second. The size is easily shown to be important because small objects, like Mercury, will rotate slower and large objects like Jupiter will rotate faster. All as demonstrated in my book. This is not mass it seems because Uranus rotates faster than Neptune while Astronomers measure Neptune as more massive than Uranus. This is the only reason I rule out mass as a criteria. Actually I think that Uranus is more massive than Neptune but measures less due to its extreme tilt. This is because a determination of mass can be made by the planets ability to revolve a satellite at a specific velocity. All things being equal, such as mean orbit radius, Jupiter would revolve Earths Moon faster than Earth does. My contention is that Uranus polar tilt revolves the satellites somewhat slower and that gives us a mass determination for Uranus that is not comparable.

I have not perfected the formula yet but you will see in my book that I have worked up all of the details. Do not confuse published Earth days for the planets with the planets actual rotations, except for the Earth. For instance the published data will show Jupiter has about 4333 days in its orbit. They really mean that Jupiter takes about 4333 Earth days to complete its orbit around the Sun. Actually Jupiter will rotate about 10,620 times in its travel around the Sun. In Surfing the Solar System I arrive at a number for each planet representing the miles-mass for each planet. You can divide the mean orbital radius for any planets satellite into the number and you will get an accurate rendition of the satellites mean orbital velocity squared. All you need do is get the square root of that result and you have the final figure. If you are mathematically inclined you can translate that into the objects orbital period. I doubt you ever thought Solar System mathematics could be so simple.

I hope I have shown you that the Solar System is as mechanical as a working machine here on Earth. The mathematical results that I offer are clear cut and very accurate. If desired you can use the best most recent published data to work with and get results up to three places behind the decimal, or better.

Unfortunately I have been compelled to refer to my book in the course of preparing a book with a more detailed mathematical investigation of the Solar System and its working parts, and in so doing, I found that the publisher and I left a lot of miss-prints and minor errors. The mathematics is accurate and not confused by the minor typographical errors.

My book, Surfing the Solar System, is available all over the Web.

My Web site is http://www.surfingthesolarsystem.com; please check it out.