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Today, two spacecraft exploring two separate asteroids may provide critical data
that could change scientists' thoughts about these mysterious rocky worlds.
Since June of 2018, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2
has surveyed the surface of the asteroid Ryugu
and recently Japan's space agency performed a touchdown on the object
to collect physical samples, which will reach the Earth late next year.
Meanwhile, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is exploring an asteroid of remarkably similar size,
called Bennu, with dust samples from the asteroid scheduled to return to Earth in 2023.
Already, what the spacecraft have found has surprised scientists on Earth,
including the "surprisingly dry" surface of Ryugu,
and recently, the completely unexpected emission of
"energetic plumes" of particles from the asteroid Bennu.
In part 1 of this three-part presentation,
physicist Eugene Bagashov explores in detail what the missions have already found,
and he suggests from the Electric Universe perspective
what forthcoming discoveries might reveal.
Recently, there has been quite a surge of research papers
published in journals Science and Nature regarding the preliminary results of OSIRIS REx
and Hayabusa2 missions to the asteroids Bennu and Ryugu correspondingly.
Here I wish to review some of these results
and their possible implications for the Electric Universe paradigm.
Firstly, I'd like to give a rough description
of what astronomers currently believe is the origin of these objects
so that all the following findings and surprises could be placed in the proper context.
So from what I've read in these 10 papers, it follows that both Bennu and Ryugu
are supposed to have formed in the inner asteroid belt,
some hundreds of millions of years ago or perhaps a billion years ago,
being the results of a disruption of larger bodies,
approximately 100-kilometer-sized asteroids.
And supposedly, of course, these disruptions were caused by impact events
so the material released during these impacts
reaccreted to form what is now known as Bennu and Ryugu,
then for some unknown reason these asteroids migrated to the inner solar system;
for Bennu the current estimate for that is about 10 million years
ago and for Ryugu it's about 40 million years ago.
And since then they both are found here, roughly between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
With regards to their internal structure and composition,
astronomers refer to them as "rubble piles"
and it is supposed that they are composed of multitude of poorly connected pieces
that have appeared after the disruptions of their parent bodies.
From that, I think we might already see that it is acknowledged
that some catastrophic events should predate the appearance of these objects,
so many of the conclusions that the astronomers arrive at
would not directly contradict the usually assumed Electric Universe scenarios.
In my opinion, the same thing might have happened in the EU catastrophism.
Indeed, it is not impossible that a large asteroid might have been destroyed
and its pieces later formed some other bodies;
it's just the exact reason for its destruction might have been different,
namely electrical.
Yet, at the same time one might pursue a line of thinking that is more divergent from that,
namely that both Ryugu and Bennu are not the aggregates of pieces of a larger asteroid
but rather single chunks torn away from a big planet
like Earth, Venus or Mars for example, or maybe the Moon or Mercury.
As far as this scenario potentially provides more contradicting predictions
with respect to the nebular hypothesis,
I would choose to mostly stick to it although again with the caveat
that it is possible to choose a version of the origins of Ryugu and Bennu
in the EU paradigm that is less disagreeable with the nebular-hypothesis-astrophysics.
Now let's get into more details.
First of all it's worth noting how similar these two objects are.
Their size is comparable, the average diameter of Ryugu is just a bit below 1 km
and the diameter of Bennu is about 0.5 km,
they both are very dark, almost completely black
reflecting almost identical amount of solar light of only about 4.5%
which places them among the darkest known objects in the solar system
and they both demonstrate what the scientists refer to as "spinning top shape."
That is in particular a pretty peculiar uplift in the equatorial region
which makes them not quite spherical.
Here we might mark the first line of separation
between what the astronomers believe to be the reason for that shape
and what the more extreme EU scenarios of the planetary excavation might provide.
So the idea currently adopted by research teams of both Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx
is that this shape came into being because of the rotation of these supposed rubble piles
so that the poorly bound material just accumulated
in the equatorial region due to the centrifugal force.
But what about the electrical scenario?
Could the electricity produce the same shape, at least potentially?
I believe it could and in support of this statement I wish to remember one paper
that described the application of electric fields to fluids.
The authors of this paper have found that under some conditions,
the electric fields caused the droplets of fluid to squash almost into a pancake shape;
notably at this time they also released some material from the equatorial region
in the form of smaller droplets, or even rings,
but when the field disappears, the droplets assume the more relaxed spherical shape again.
Of course, that has some implications to the oblate shape of Saturn
and the possible emergence of its rings due to the previous electric stresses.
I even once had an idea that
one day we might learn to use these rings almost like in tinder dendrochronology
to determine the space climate so to speak,
the electromagnetic conditions in the past of the solar system
from the ring density and the size of the gaps between them etc.
But anyway, returning to Ryugu and Bennu,
I think it might have been possible to achieve this same shape
through application of the electric fields during the time of their formation.
It is possible again that the asteroids therefore do not represent piles of rubble
but rather a more or less homogeneous objects with quite good internal strength
that was able to retain this peculiar shape since the time of their formation.
Of course, the paper I am referring to had dealt with liquids,
but at least I believe the general pattern is there
and at the moment it is unclear what might happen to the crustal rock
during extremely intense electric discharges.
Perhaps they might undergo a sequence of phase transitions
or other types of structural transformations etc.
I should note how symmetric and regular they look;
both these objects almost look like monolithic crystals
rather than a bunch of irregular rocks randomly stuck together with microgravity.
Let's talk now about densities of Ryugu and Bennu.
They are quite remarkably the same, 1,190 kg/m³ for both of the bodies.
In my opinion, this incredible similarity would be quite hard to achieve
if both of them were the result of sticking together of a bunch of different rocks
forming the proverbial rubble pile that the researchers keep talking about.
Such similarity, in my opinion, would indicate that perhaps both of these bodies
originate from the same type of initial rock
that again, according to the scenario discussed above,
might have belonged to a large planet and have been excavated from it electrically.
What is also interesting is that this density figure
is much lower than the one usually assumed for an average asteroid
that is about 2,000 kg/m³
and much closer to the cometary nuclei that have densities in the region of about 800 kg/m³.
And just as in case of cometary nuclei,
here the researchers assume that the low density is the result of high porosity
which is estimated to be 50% or even bigger.
However, they assume that high porosity
is the result of this rubble pile type of inner structure
rather than the property of the rock itself,
but I wish to repeat my point from the previous recent videos on Mars,
I think that the higher porosity might be the consequence
of internal transformations of the crustal planetary rock
under the influence of extremely strong electric discharges.
In order to validate the rubble pile scenario,
the researchers from OSIRIS REx team propose that
there might be some internal inhomogeneities in the asteroid Bennu.
In particular, they say that their measurements
"...correspond to about 0.1% shift in the center of mass
and an approximately 0.1 degree offset of the principal axis
with respect to a constant density shape,
and they indicate heterogeneity in the mass distribution."
Well OK, let's suppose that the measurements are correct,
though in my opinion that is not guaranteed,
but is 0.1% shift of the center of mass and 0.1 degree offset of the axis
with respect to the constant density shape such a big deal?
Is this a good piece of evidence for any significant inhomogeneity?
It is only my opinion but I would say that quite the contrary,
such a miniscule offset indicates a pretty homogeneous and incredibly ordered object,
especially given its size.
Objects less than 1 km in size should be nowhere near as ordered
if their shapes are maintained by gravitation alone.
Only bodies of few hundreds of kilometers in size might assume spherical form gravitationally.
Moreover, even if you look at Earth,
we have about 2.5 km offset of the center of mass with respect to the center of figure,
which in terms of percent translates into 0.04.
Is therefore Earth a rubble pile or is it still highly structured?
Other point that the OSIRIS REx team makes with regards to density is that
"...at 50-60%, Bennu's high total porosity is incompatible with a monolithic body
and may be the strongest evidence for a rubble-pile interior."
Well, it's a shame that these people don't even read their colleagues' papers,
otherwise they would know that Rosetta mission has shown that the nucleus of the comet 67P
is internally highly homogeneous
and at the same time it has even higher porosity of more than 70%.
So it seems that this argument is also invalid.
With regards to that, it's probably worth to remember
the unexpectedly strong material of the comet 67P nucleus.
As you probably know, the MUPUS penetrator,
on board of Philae lander, failed to insert itself into the nucleus
and even the SD2 instrument drill seems to have failed to make a hole in it
just lifting the lander instead.
In my opinion, the same underestimation might happen with asteroids Ryugu and Bennu,
if the hypothetical rubble pile scenario would prove to be wrong.
In the next two videos, we'll discuss some other hints that it might be the case,
but so far I wish to note that this potentially has some implications
for the upcoming impactor release event that Hayabusa2 team
is currently planning to conduct in early April.
In my opinion, the estimates of the depth of crater that this impactor would create
are higher than what would be actually observed,
as the strength of the rock of Ryugu is most likely underestimated.
So perhaps the crater would be flatter and wider rather than deeper and narrower,
even though the impactor is a 2.5 kilogram copper projectile
that is going to be shot into Ryugu at the astonishing speed of 2 km/s.
Now some might say that the discharge between the impactor and the surface of Ryugu is also possible
but I have some doubts about that,
given the fact that Hayabusa 2 was orbiting the asteroid for a few months already
and it even had a touchdown on the surface in February.
On a final note, I'd like to say that of course it's quite hard to predict exactly
the properties of rock that has undergone the processes that we don't observe today
so maybe I would be wrong in my conclusions,
even though the initial ideas would be correct.