Planet V

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Planet V is a hypothetical fifth planet thought by NASA space scientists John Chambers and Jack Lissauer to have once existed between Mars and the asteroid belt, based on computer simulations. The computer modeling findings of Chambers and Lissauer were presented during the 33rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held March 11 thru 15, 2002, and sponsored by NASA and the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

[edit] The Planet V Theory

Chambers and Lissauer have theorize that the a previously unknown terrestrial planet once existenced in a successively eccentric and unstable orbit around the sun, before 4,000 Mya. They connect this planet, which they name Planet V, and its disappearance with the Late Heavy Bombardment episode of the Hadean era. ^[1] ^[2]

"The extra planet formed on a low-eccentricity orbit that was long-lived, but unstable," Chambers reported. About 3.9 billion years ago, Planet V was perturbed by gravitational interactions with the other inner planets. It was tossed onto a highly eccentric orbit that crossed the inner asteroid belt, a reservoir of material much larger than it is today. It spun through the inner belt of asteroids, causing them to fly into Mars-crossing orbits. This temporarily enhanced the population of bodies on Earth-crossing orbits, and also increased the lunar impact rate. The cataclysm event ended when Planet V finally spun into the Sun and was destroyed.

This theory differs notably from other fifth planet theories in both that it does not address the disruption theory, that is, the theory that the asteroid belt is formed from the fragments of an exploded planet, and that it is accepted by the mainstream scientific community today.