Phaeton (hypothetical planet)

Phaeton (Greek: the beam end ) was called a hypothetical planet should have an orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The name of the hypothetical planet is borrowed from Greek mythology: Phaeton is the one the epithet of the sun god Helios and on the other the name of his son.

When Johann Daniel Titius in 1766 with the now so-called Titius - Bode series aufstellte an empirical formula that describes the path distance relationships of all known planets approximation, he found that this number can only represent the distances from Jupiter when additionally a planet between Mars and Jupiter einschob.

Therefore Man caught in subsequent years to systematically search for this putative planet, and in 1801 finally found Giuseppe Piazzi in the area in question the asteroid Ceres. Rasch found more asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, whose large accumulation has then led to the designation as the asteroid belt.

The original assumption that they are fragments of a destroyed planet with these celestial bodies, but it turned out to be very unlikely. Firstly, the total mass of all objects in the asteroid belt is less than that of Earth's moon and on the other may be likely to form due to the strong gravitational perturbations by Jupiter at this point of the planetesimals no larger body. Today, therefore, assumes that there never was a planet between Mars and Jupiter.

Since 1983, the asteroid Phaethon that name. However, he is not a member of the asteroid belt, but a near-Earth asteroid.

  • About Holte theory (Astronomy)
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