Is Saturn Jupiter's Father?

According to Immanuel Velikovsky, ancient myths should be taken as records of actual astronomical events. When a myth tells us that Venus is the daughter of Jupiter, that should be interpreted literally in the sense that Venus came out of Jupiter through planetary fission.

So, are we then to suppose that Jupiter is the son of Saturn, as relayed in the story about the war of the Titans?

Jupiter is larger than Saturn. Could it nevertheless have been formed from Saturn, and could this have happened within human history?

Putting on our Velikovsky glasses we'll see if we can make sense of the story in terms of astronomical events:

It all started with a prophesy in which Saturn is told that he is to be dethroned by his own son. In response to this, Saturn starts eating his own children. As soon as one is born, he swallows it.

Astronomically, this sounds like a large planet under electrical stress. It produces one child after another. However, none of them manage to break free from their parent. The energy hill preventing planets from spontaneously falling apart is too steep for the children to get across. They orbit the planet once or twice before falling back into it.

Fed up with Saturn's habit of eating his own children, Saturn's wife hides one of her children and feed Saturn a rock instead.

Saturn and Saturn's wife are probably two aspects of the same planet. In Hindu religion, all deities come in a masculine and a feminine version. It was almost certainly the same for the Olympic gods.

Astronomically, we can interpret this as Saturn spawning a large moon, and swallowing a comet, or some minor moon.

What's interesting at this point is that Jupiter is not described as particularly big. There was no doubt about who was the father and who was the son.

Saturn's wife hides Jupiter in the shadows of a cave: Jupiter disappears for a while. Astronomers cannot find him anywhere.

When Jupiter reappears, he's big enough to pick a fight with his father. His first attack makes Saturn throw up the children that he ate:

The close encounter between Saturn and Jupiter makes Saturn throw off large amounts of matter.

Jupiter joins forces with his liberated siblings, and declares war on his father and all other Titans. Ten years of war follow in which the Olympians and Titans do battle.

The matter separated from Saturn is partially consumed by Jupiter and partially included as moons. Jupiter starts a grand tour of the solar system in which planets are obliterated and/or thrown out of the solar system. The planets that survive are the Olympians. The planets that get destroyed are the Titans.

After a ten year rampage, Jupiter returns to Saturn. By then, Jupiter has joined forces with the Cyclopses and Hecatonchires. Throwing hundreds and hundreds of rocks at Saturn, and striking him with great bolts of lightning, Jupiter finally wins against Saturn and expel him to the edge of creation:

Jupiter finally wins control of the inner orbit, previously controlled by Saturn, and Saturn is expelled to a wider, more distant orbit.

Jupiter marries his sister, and starts pumping out children:

At regular intervals, Jupiter spawns a moon.

It all makes sense of sorts. However, it seems strange that Jupiter could have grown to become so much larger than Saturn merely by joining forces with other moons and minor planets.

What might have been going on in addition to the consumption of a large number of asteroids and other rocks, is a process of rapid mass condensation.

If the matter that Jupiter was created from came from deep withing Saturn, it may have been well shielded from gamma-rays and therefore starved for mass. Once out into the free, this mass starved matter converted high energy photons to mass at an impressive rate. Coming close to the Sun, there would have been an abundance of radiation for Jupiter to feed on.

Growing in mass, Jupiter would swell up due to internal pressure, and it would become heavier in terms of inertia. This would send Jupiter back out in a wider orbit, ready to do battle with his father.

Saturn had initially given birth to a planet far smaller and less dense than himself. But rapid mass condensation, paired with a healthy diet of asteroids, comets and minor moons, may have been sufficient to make Jupiter larger than his father.

This whole story seems a little contrived, but it makes sense, and it makes the ancient myths a lot less weird.

Now, if Jupiter could only give birth to a moon or two in the coming years, the debate around this would definitely take a new turn. Proving the last part of the story is true, the earlier parts of the story would appear less strange, and Velikovsky's view would come back in vogue. It would go a long way in proving that Saturn really is Jupiter's father.

Saturn Devouring His Son

By Francisco Goya - [1], Public Domain, Link