A Widening of Orbits

While writing about Jupiter's dysfunctional relationship with his father, I touched upon a mechanism that could explain how Jupiter was first drawn close to the Sun, only to spiral back out towards Saturn.

The idea was that Jupiter was made of matter starved for mass. Coming from deep inside Saturn, the matter that made up Jupiter had been shielded from gamma-rays. It did not have the same heavy protons and neutrons as matter closer to the surface of Saturn. However, once out in the open, the matter comprising Jupiter quickly put on mass by soaking up gamma-rays and other high energy photons.

Jupiter started out relatively small and light, but grew quickly through mass condensation and mass accumulation, soaking up high energy photons as well as all sorts of rubble and rocks that crossed its path.

Jupiter was initially drawn quite close to the Sun, but its increase in mass made it gradually spiral outwards, knocking out planets on its way. The so called Titans were either obliterated or thrown out of the solar system by an increasingly veracious Jupiter.

The whole process took allegedly a mere ten years. However, I suspect it lasted considerably longer than that.

What made Jupiter spiral outwards was the fact that it was putting on mass at a far quicker rate in percentage terms than the Sun. The gravitational field of the Sun was relatively constant throughout the entire period, while Jupiter's mass increased rapidly. The net result of this was that Jupiter's orbit widened.

What is particularly interesting about this is that it appears as if a widening of orbits is something that is still taking place. Not only for Jupiter, but for all planets and moons. We know for a fact that our Moon is receding from us, and there are good reasons to believe that the same is true for planets around the Sun. How else could ancient astronomers have made such accurate observations of planets, if not due to a relatively closer proximity?

So the mechanism that sent Jupiter first in towards the Sun and then spiraling out towards Saturn appears to be a universal one that applies to all orbits. It appears as if relatively small objects are putting on mass at a relatively higher rate than large objects.

If our Moon is gaining mass quicker than Earth, the orbit would widen. The same would be the case for Earth and the Sun if Earth is putting on mass quicker in relative terms than the Sun.

So what's going on?

The answer lies in the way mass is increasing. It increases through the production and absorption of electron-positron pairs by neutrons and protons. Such pairs are generated by high energy photons when they come into contact with the strong electromagnetic fields of atomic nuclei. This happens at a greater rate close to the surface of an object than deeper inside. This follows directly from the fact that high energy photons are stopped on their way in towards the center of planets.

Since small objects have relatively large surface areas compared to their bulk, they soak up high energy photons at a relatively quicker rate than larger objects. Small objects grow their mass quicker in relative terms than larger objects. It is inevitable then, that planets will gain mass relatively quicker than stars, and moons gain mass relatively quicker than planets. As a consequence, all orbits widen over time.

Opposing forces yielding stable orbits