Secret Journey to Planet Serpo (23 page)

APPENDIX 4

SERPO PLANETARY MOTION AND TIME MEASUREMENT COMMENTS

The disclosures by Anonymous stimulated a lively discussion. Many comments sent in to the website addressed believed scientific discrepancies and anomalies. Others sought to solve the time dilemma that caused the team to come home three years late. All the comments are reproduced here in the interests of perhaps filling in missing pieces and of adding more depth to what Anonymous has revealed. I have tried to present them faithfully verbatim, but in some cases minor corrections were necessary.

After reading Dr. Sagan's remarks on the Serpo project, which is about sixty jam-packed pages of calculations, I found one paragraph which states that in order to use Kepler's law in the case of Planet Serpo, one had to vary the exact gravitational pull placed on Serpo by the two suns. Serpo did not have large planets, like Jupiter and Saturn to affect the gravitational pull, as the Earth does. Serpo's gravitational pull was different than anything Dr. Sagan had ever seen before. There are numerous figures and calculations to support this. I will forward them at a later date. Have your list stay tuned . . .

In response to the intensive, ongoing debate recorded in the Comments section of this site, I would like to endorse this clarification from a prominent physicist on the list:
The senior theory (essentially proven) is Newton's inverse square law for gravity. For a simple system, Kepler's laws are a fallout of what a planetary solution looks like (for the simple case of a single planet circling a massive sun). For a complex situation (like a planet interacting with two suns, several planets, or whatever), you have to go back to Newton's law and solve a many-body problem, which takes a com
puter. In this case Kepler's laws are only an approximation, since they hold only for the simplest case. —Anonymous

There are conflicts with other data. Rick Doty, who witnessed the Ebe2 interview
^*39
says Zeta 1 had eleven planets. . . . Zeta 2 was well beyond the orbit of the eleventh planet. Zeta 1 and 2 are not close binaries. They are spread very far apart. Astronomical observations back that up. Rotation period according to Ebe2 was thirty-eight hours. Temperatures: 65°F–90°F. Orbital tilt was 54 degrees. All this from the Ebe2 interview in the book [see footnote]. Epsilon Eridani is a K2-type star. Age estimates put it at half a billion to a billion years old. Not long enough for even amoebas to develop. ANONYMOUS has got lots of things right, but other things wrong, or it's mixed up, which makes me suspect.

—Comment November 7, 2005

Nothing really new here except added information on the makeup of the planet. As for the laws of physics, your Anonymous is twisting the facts. The orbits of those two stars, Zeta 1 and 2, are an observational fact, not some law of physics, although all galaxies, stars, and planets operate under those laws, from what's been observed. The two stars are spread wide apart by 350 billion miles, called a wide binary. And Kepler's law was applied to the planets of Zeta 2 and it works pretty [well] even for elliptical orbits. Puts Ebe1's home planet . . . right where it should be, see table. The game I think is to convince everyone that, yes, Anonymous does have some good information. But beware: good information from what I see is being sprinkled with bad information or disinfo. For Zeta 1 and 2, see link (
http://www.solstation.com/stars2/zeta-ret.htm
). For Zeta 2 planets, see table. Ebe1 came from the fourth planet around Zeta 2. See the AU [Astronomical Units] place planet 4 is
sitting around Zeta 2 or 1.12 AU. Very nice place to live. . . . Notice that
Zeta-4 orbital period is 432 days, but yet it's farther out than SERPO was
in that Anonymous report, which gave a ridiculous 865.

So one Reticulum 4 year is equal to roughly 1.12 Earth years, or 432
days. And it is in roughly the same position in Zeta 2 Reticulum's “lifezone”
as the Earth is in the sun's. Zeta 2 Reticulum is a G1V spectral class
star, the sun is a G2V.

—Comment November 9, 2005

If the “Away Team” couldn't make their measuring devices work properly,
then why even quote numbers like these? Is a mile on Earth a mile
on SERPO? Recall that lengths are now referred to as the wavelength of
light. Is the light wavelength to be trusted? Does red light generated
by excited neon atoms, which has a wavelength of 6328 angstroms on
Earth, have some other value in SERPIAN length measurement units? Is
there neon on SERPO? (Are their elements the same [as ours]?) Some
have speculated that there could be different values for Planck's Constant,
c, etc., in different universes. If SERPO is in another universe, all
bets are off as to whether or not we could make sense of what is “normal”
to them. (Talk about “out of the box” thinking!) Some of you may
recognize this as the wavelength of red HeNe laser light. If an HeNe
laser were built on SERPO and the laser light directed toward Earth,
would the wavelength when received on Earth be 6328 Å? If so, then
there should be a simple ratio between SERPIAN length units and ours. If not, then it would be much more difficult or perhaps impossible to derive SERPO physics from our own. Moons: SERPO has two. Complicated tides? Distances from planet? Relative sizes? Periods? Day: 43 hours. Whose hours? Makes no sense to quote this as hours unless it is intended to mean our hours, which are related to our seconds (3,600 per hour) and each second is a number of oscillations of the atomic clock. If atoms “run differently” on SERPO, then not only will wavelengths be different (see above) but also frequencies (time durations of oscillation). Which type of day? Does this refer to rotation of the planet relative to one of the nearby stars or relative to the distant stars? (We measure “sun days” and “distant star” days; they differ slightly because the Earth rotates around the sun.) ASSUME this “day” is 43 of our hours, so there are 154,800 of OUR seconds in THEIR day as compared to 86,400 of OUR seconds in our day (approximations used liberally!) Year: 865 days. Does this mean our years? Probably not! For someone on SERPO, it would be natural to measure a complete rotation around a sun (relative to distant stars) in terms of the rotations of the planet. If we assume this means THEIR days of 43 hours, then their year is (all numbers approximate) 1.3 x 10
⁸
of OUR seconds, whereas our year is 3.1 x 10
⁷
of OUR seconds. Previously, the Kepler's law was applied under the assumption that the mass of the sun about which the planet rotates was the same as our sun. However, I, probably incorrectly, used 865 days as 865 of “our” days, which would be 2.37 of our years. I should have accounted for the 43-hour day. A day this long means that the rotation period is actually 865/365 x 43/24 = 4.2 of our years. For the Earth, Kepler's rule can be written as follows, using years and AU as the units of measurement (with 1 AU = radius of Earth from sun) (1)
³
/(1)
²
= 1 (AU)
³
/(year)
²
. For a planet rotating around a sun with the mass of our sun in 4.2 years, Kepler's rule is written as r
³
/(4.2)
²
= 1, which leads to a radius of 2.6 AU or 240 million miles, noticeably larger than the 164 million I calculated before.

One problem with this sun data: if strictly interpreted, as the distance from one sun is ALWAYS 91.4 million [miles] and the distance from the other is ALWAYS 96.5 [million miles] then we have an “impossibility” . . . or at least I can't conceive of an orbit that keeps the distance from one constant at one value and at the same time keeps the distance from the other also at one value. I could conceive of an orbit that keeps the distance from one constant while the distance to the other varies with a periodicity that depends upon the period of rotation of the suns around one another and the rotation period (SERPO year) of the planet. If interpreted as average distances from the suns as SERPO travels in an elliptical (or more complicated) orbit, then there may be some way to explain this. Of course, those suns would be orbiting one another at some distance apart, so if SERPO did have an orbit that encompassed both suns, then it must orbit the center of mass of the suns (unless there is some complex orbit, as I suggested previously, like a figure eight or a warped ellipse). Need more info on the suns, orbit, etc.

—Comment, November 11, 2005

Neat! Of course an alternative is that the Suns are somewhat less massive than our Sol < (which would shove the mass ratio of Theirs/Sol 1 in place of the normalized “1.0” (with the Earth Orbital Distance, and the Earth Orbital Period, the respective Length and Time units), which would mean that larger Periods would prevail at similar Central Star-to-Planet Distance, or less distance result at similar Orbital Period, compared to the Earth-Sol system. If they were in fact OLDER (relative time over expected life span of such and such a mass star) than Sol, then they may already have begun Helium Burning and a climb in Brightness, which could allow a bit lower mass stars than Sol to shine as brightly. Now novel several-body configurations have been found occasionally over the last century, but most effort has gone into the restricted 3-Body problem IN A PLANE. I can imagine a possibility with two similar stars—there might be a chance of stable manifold for a small planet in a “slow wobbling orbit” around the center of mass of the two suns, approximately with “normal” axis the instantaneous line between the two stars. I write the quotes around “normal” because I expect the orbit to reside NOT in a Plane but RATHER in a torus centered on the center of mass of the two Stars.

However, the squeaker of a coincidence for the surface gravitational acceleration value (9.97 and 9.96, compared to engineering assumed Earth normal of 9.806 m/s
²
) you show below suggests that some of the “data” has been cooked in a whimsical way.

If Serpo is slightly similar in size than Earth but has a higher bulk mass density, then I certainly see a possibility of less of the lighter mantle elements O, K, Mg, S, Si than with Earth, certainly less water of hydration in upper mantle rock, and maybe less crustal pore space.

—Comment, November 11, 2005

I'm a military scientist. Here are my observations regarding the SERPO information: The question of whether the “laws of physics” apply differently from galaxy to galaxy dependent upon their spin is irrelevant to any discussion of Reticuli twins, in that they are both part of the same Milky Way galaxy as is our Sun. Moreover, any distortion in our observations of OTHER galaxies which MIGHT result from the spin of our own, would apply across the board, and thus in essence negate itself, since there would be no way to logically compare it to similar distortional effects which would affect observers in other galaxies in their efforts to observe us, presuming that both observations were initiated at the exact same moment of universal time. In other words, if a third observer in some other dimension were able to compare 1 unit of time (say, a single oscillation of one atom of cesium) as observed on planet Earth, with 1 unit of time equally measured on the planet X in the faraway galaxy of XXXXX, that observer might conclude (after removing all other variables) that the two units were different from his perspective, even though both observers in both galaxies might observe and report what they thought were the same results.

A cesium clock ticks off one second on planet Earth. A twin cesium clock placed in orbit and traveling at orbital velocity also ticks off one second. Observers at each location agree that one second has passed, as confirmed by the readout on their instrumentation. It is only when the two clocks are compared that it becomes obvious that there has been some distortion; yet in attempting to compare them it becomes equally obvious that the same observer cannot ever observe both at EXACTLY the same time (with a bow to Heisenberg). Thus, differences arise NOT from the observation, but from the perspective used to interpret it.

The basic theorem: Only from an observation platform set in ANOTHER universe would an observer be able to detect and have some basis of accurately comparing distortions being produced locally in THIS universe by differences in the spin rates of the various galaxies of which it is composed. All this aside, unless the inhabitants of SERPO routinely walk on ceilings and through walls, the laws of physics apply the same there as they do here.

—Lieutenant Colonel ____ ____

USAF Scientific Advisory Group

Comment, November 11, 2005

I've already had independent confirmation from three sources now that the late Dr. Carl Sagan WAS involved in such a project and Project Serpo served as the inspiration for his '85 novel and '97 movie,
Contact
.”

—Comment, November 14, 2005

Incidentally, the “senior theory” mentioned above, re: Newton's gravitational attraction law, is only part of the “equation. ”The other parts are:

1) the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, and

(2) the centrifugal force due to orbiting keeps the suns from crashing together and is balanced: M1 omega
²
R1 = M2 omega
²
R2, where omega is the angular rate of rotation (v1/R1 = v2/R2). Each M is the inertial mass that has been shown to equal the gravitational mass and is a basis for Einstein's theory of gravity.

This centrifugal force (each sun pulling on the other) is what results in the rotation about the center of mass at some location along the line joining the two suns. The center of mass is found by using R = R1 + R2 and M1R1 = M2R2, where R is the distance between the suns and the gravitational force between the suns is GM1M2/R
²
. When M1 = M2, the center of mass is at the center point of the line joining the centers of the suns. When one mass is huge compared to the other (as with a planet orbiting a sun), the center of mass becomes very close to the center of the most massive sun and the sun “stands still” as the planet orbits. Note that the recent discoveries of planets have been based on the fact that if a planet is heavy enough, the center of mass of the sun-planet system will not be at the center of the sun. In this case the sun orbits the center of mass and this orbiting can produce a doppler shift in the spectrum of light from the sun as the sun goes around the center of mass.