Unraveling the Mystery of the Disappearing Planet
Where is the disappeared planet between Mars and Jupiter?
This might be the most exquisite astronomical accident in human history.
Where did the disappeared planet between Mars and Jupiter go? This seemingly illogical question has puzzled astronomers for decades. What exactly is going on? As early as 1766, the German astronomer Johann Titius, in a stroke of luck, discovered that the distances between planets and the Sun seemed to follow a very peculiar rule. Taking the distance from the Sun to Mercury as 0.4 astronomical units as the base, the distance to Venus is 0.4 + 0.3, to Earth is 0.4 + 0.6, and then to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are 0.4 + 1.2, 0.4 + 4.8, and 0.4 + 9.6 respectively. It appears that the positions of all planets are arranged in a sequence of 0.4 + 0.3 multiplied by 2 to the power of n. However, Titius noticed a problem: according to this rule, there should be a planet behind Mars at a distance of 0.4 + 2.4 astronomical units.
So where is it?
This statement shocked the entire astronomical community at the time because the explanation was perfect both in astronomy and mathematics. Later, Johann Bode summarized it into an empirical formula that represents the average distance of each planet from the Sun, known as the Titius-Bode Law. People then began frantically searching for this theoretically missing planet. However, as there had been no significant discoveries for over a thousand years, finding this new planet proved to be quite challenging. But just a few years later, the discovery of another new planet caused a sensation once again.
In 1774, the German musician William Herschel, driven by his passion for observing celestial bodies, constructed a large metal reflecting telescope with a diameter of 1.2 meters and a length of 12 meters. Seven years later, one night, he discovered the seventh-largest planet in the solar system, Uranus. Astronomers later calculated that the average distance between Uranus and the Sun was 19.2, which closely matched the 19.6 calculated by the Titius-Bode Law. This discovery further strengthened the belief that there must be an undiscovered planet between Mars and Jupiter.
But no matter how astronomers searched, they found no traces until one night on January 1, 1801, when the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, while observing, noticed a faint point of light moving slowly. After observing it for several tens of days, Piazzi determined that it was not a comet. Subsequent calculations revealed that its orbit was an ellipse around the Sun, with a radius of approximately 2.77 astronomical units, which was remarkably close to the 2.8 predicted by the Titius-Bode Law and conveniently located between Mars and Jupiter. Many believed this to be the missing planet and named it Ceres. However, astronomer Olbers believed that Ceres, being so close to Earth yet dim in brightness, couldn’t be a planet. Subsequently, in 1802, Olbers discovered another planet, Pallas, on an orbit almost identical to Ceres’.
In the years following, astronomers discovered similar objects like Juno, Vesta, Astraea, and Ceres in the same region. It dawned upon them that this gap between Mars and Jupiter wasn’t a planet after all but rather a collection of smaller bodies. Thus, these objects were collectively termed asteroids, and this region was named the asteroid belt. With advancements in observational technology, humanity has discovered 120,000 asteroids in this region but has yet to find a true planet.
Thus, the mystery of the lost planet that plagued humanity for nearly half a century was finally solved, and the remarkable Titius-Bode Law might just be an exquisite mathematical coincidence.
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