Exploded Planet Hypothesis - Part III, More Support

I have a few more findings to cover that seem to support the Exploded Planet Hypothesis (EPH). I want to talk briefly about satellites of comets and asteroids, the Late Heavy Bombardment, and finally what Mars has to say about all this.

In the generally accepted model of cometary formation (in the nebular "leftovers" model), comets (and asteroids) should not possess satellites. The spheres of influence of these bodies as they formed would have been too small to ever capture satellites. If the EPH is true, however, just after the explosion, space would have been filled with debris. Large pieces would have attracted many smaller fragments. Some might have found stable orbits and become satellites, and those that could not find stable orbits (due to geometric irregularities) would have de-orbited, and skidded across the surface of the larger piece.

The Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid Ida in 1993, and discovered a small satellite in orbit, now named Dactyl. In 2000, the spacecraft NEAR flew by the asteroid Eros, and took an image of a large boulder lying on the surface at the end of a long "roll mark". Precisely what the EPH would predict. When the Hubble Space Telescope zoomed in on Comet Hale-Bopp, it discovered at least one, possible even three, secondary nuclei.

The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) is thought to have been a period of extreme meteor activity about 4 billion years ago, following a period of relative calm. The date assigned to the LHB is mainly based on analysis of moon rocks and craters, and is highly suspect. It does appear, however, that the solar system did undergo severe cratering some time in its past. This is evidenced by nearly all the solid bodies in the solar system, including Earth. This would fit nicely into the EPH; Planet V being the source of the projectiles.

Mars has some very interesting things to say about the EPH. Most convincingly, Mars is not a perfect sphere, but exhibits two bulges 180 degrees apart: Tharsis and Arabia. The most obvious explanation for these features is that they are tidal bulges; created by a "parent planet" with which Mars was tidally locked.

The Mars Odyssey mission used its neutron spectrometer to measure neutron flux across the surface of Mars, looking for water deposits. The maps that were created from the collected data show the largest quantities of water to rest right on top of Tharsis and Arabia, exactly where you would not expect them to be if Mars was never a moon, and exactly where you would expect if Mars was a moon. (See LANL's website on the topic.)

The Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) on board Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission has taken numerous images of recently formed (i.e. present day) short-lived "stains" that appear clustered around both Tharsis and Arabia. This is exactly where one would expect Mars' former oceans to have been. These stains are theorized to be subsurface water that has built enough backpressure to break through an ice dam, and gush onto the surface.

Mars has apparently experienced cataclysmic flooding at some time in its past. This is evidenced by massive mud plains covering large portions of the surface. This could be an indication of the loss of Mars' tidal lock with its parent body, causing the oceans at the bulges to attempting to redistribute themselves to lower altitudes (and thus lower gravitational potential energies).

Mars' "line of dichotomy" can also be explained by the EPH. The southern highlands are heavily cratered, practically wall to wall. The northern lowlands, on the other hand, are relatively smooth and unscarred. This suggests that whatever caused the majority of cratering on Mars was a nearby and short-lived phenomenon. This is consistent with the explosion of Planet V, but not with the traditional LHB models.

A paper by Richard Hoagland and Michael Bara deals with the Mars Tidal Model in a very detailed and technical manner. It's a great read.