yes
On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 4:48 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: > I have been enjoying the* Planets* simulation on my Linux system and > noticed something that gave me a bit of concern. Perhaps some of my > fellow vorts have information concerning the issue that I am about to > mention which sheds light upon the real danger. > > When I play with a system that contains a large multitude of planet like > objects generated randomly within a small region of space I see that in > every case many of the objects are ejected from the region at a high rate > of speed into open space. I am not too confident that the program does a > great simulation of the real process since it operates in 2 dimensions only > while the real systems use 3. > > My concern is that this process would typically send a large number of > dangerous mass objects into the region between stars and as a consequence > some in our direction. The ones that cross our orbit could lead to a > catastrophe if they were to collide with the earth. The objects that do > not collide would likely continue on their paths through space and out the > other side of our solar system. > > Is there reason to consider this situation as dangerous and is there > evidence that this has happened before? Today, most of the comets and > asteroids are considered in orbit around our sun, but is that the only > condition? > > How close to earth would an asteroid need to pass before it is detected by > our systems? And, if the size were large enough to cause an extinction > level event, would we see it before it was too late? > > It is fairly well established that the history of earth has included many > extinction events and they have generally been assumed to be from objects > in orbit around the sun. Does anyone know of any proof that none from way > out there has impacted us? > > I recall reading about a period of earth's history where a large quantity > of collisions came after the earth was similar to today. This happened > when the earth was millions if not a billion years old and since the sun > was formed along with numerous brothers, perhaps some of the ejections from > it's twins caused the event. The delay would have give them enough time to > reach us from adjacent star systems if traveling at a high velocity. > > Do we have reason to worry? > > Dave >
