VOL III, No. 2 Jan 31, 1999 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS CAPTIVES OF SIMPLIFYING ASSUMPTIONS . . . . . . . . .Mel Acheson MARS ROCKS IN ANCIENT MYTH AND MODERN SCIENCE: Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ev Cochrane SACRIFICE AND AMNESIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dave Talbott PLUTO: A NEW CLASS OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP Comments by Eric Douma THE SOLAR GAS RECORD IN LUNAR SAMPLES AND METEORITES Comments by Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- CAPTIVES OF SIMPLIFYING ASSUMPTIONS By Mel Acheson "Our choicest plans have fallen through, our airiest castles tumbled over, because of lines we neatly drew and later neatly stumbled over." --Piet Hein GROOKS I was checking out the dynamics describing the orbit of SOHO, the sun-watching satellite oscillating around a mathematical point in empty space (see www.geom.umn.edu/~megraw/MATH1/math1.html), when I stumbled over a few of Piet Hein's neatly drawn lines. In order to solve the equations of motion, a few simplifying assumptions had to be made: The Earth's orbit was made circular. SOHO was made massless. The coordinate system was put into rotation. These assumptions were stated, but others weren't: The Moon (and all the other planets) were ignored. The Earth and Sun were made dimensionless points. Those are the kind of "of course" assumptions that are easily recalled. But there are more subtle- and more pernicious-ones: That the underlying theory is a law that's universal and ahistorical. That there are no consequences to our unawareness of the vast ignorance we have of the complex real world frolicking just beyond the circle of our assumptions' illumination. An apt symbol of this stumbling over neatly drawn lines is Einstein's assertion that time is an illusion. The simplified equations are solved; the simplifying assumptions are forgotten; and people begin to believe nature is as simple as the math. Because the idealized deductions work "close enough" in certain carefully-selected situations, they're believed to be more real than reality. They break out of their domains of validity and hold us hostage to their degraded logic. Those simple, universal, time-symmetric laws have no place for chance, no place for choice, no place for the emergent, higher levels of order and intelligibility we see filling the real world. Outside its domain of validity, that simplified and reduced world of ideal equations has turned out to be a prison of determinism, an exile of impoverishment. We have become captives of our own simplifying assumptions. Ilya Prigogine and his associates have worked out a reformulation of the laws of physics that accounts for irreversible time (see his The End of Certainty). They incorporate insights from instability physics, resonant systems, and non-equilibrium states. In this reformulation, probability and uncertainty become essential, rather than begrudged concessions to ignorance. The old, deterministic physics becomes a special case within the new, more general formulation: When conditions of stability and equilibrium actually occur (usually in "dead" systems), the simplification of probabilities and the reduction to certainties describes the real. In all other cases--the majority of real conditions--probability and uncertainty lead to complex hierarchies of self-organizing systems. The simplifying assumptions can be put back in their properly- limited places. We can break free from their tyranny. "We are observing the birth of a science that is no longer limited to idealized and simplified situations but reflects the complexity of the real world, a science that views us and our creativity as part of a fundamental trend present at all levels of nature." --Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty, p. 7. Mel Acheson thoth at whidbey.com ---------------------------------------------- MARS ROCKS IN ANCIENT MYTH AND MODERN SCIENCE: Part II By Ev Cochrane [Ed note: this article was originally printed in AEON: Vol IV No 2, pg. 57-73.] The Ancient Testimony An entirely different explanation for the presence of Martian meteorites upon Earth emerges upon consideration of ancient literature. As I have documented elsewhere, the planet Mars was worshipped by most ancient peoples. It follows that the red planet was the subject of much attention by ancient skywatchers, who regarded it as an malevolent force to be feared and propitiated. Indeed, Mars was associated with spectacular disasters of one form or another, not the least of which was a great flood of water descending from the sky. Following Velikovsky's lead-but also modifying and elaborating upon his conclusions and chronology-I have confirmed that the ancients described Mars as being much closer in recent times, close enough, in fact, to dominate the skies. Various Babylonian omens, for example, associate Mars with prodigious eclipses of the Sun. Consider the following omen: "If the Sun goes down (by a Darkness/Eclipse) and Mars stands in its place, there will be an Usurpator." As a result of such reports, Gossman concluded that "Mars [was] the star of the Darkness/Eclipse." Given Mars' current orbit, an association between that planet and eclipses is difficult to understand, the red planet never being in a position to be involved in eclipses of the sun. Yet if Mars only recently moved upon a different orbit, one much closer to the Earth, the Babylon reports become easier to understand. And the same is true with regards to the presence of Martian meteorites upon terrestrial landscape. Is there any ancient testimony associating Mars with meteorites, or with the hurling of stones from heaven? Indeed there is, and it is quite compelling. The most extensive analysis of the ancient traditions surrounding meteorites is that of Judith Bjorkman. Bjorkman showed that the ancient Babylonians, among others, held surprisingly sophisticated views about the nature of meteorites. Bjorkman summarized her findings as follows: "The texts show that the peoples of the ancient Near East knew of and were able to describe shooting stars, meteors, fireballs, meteor showers, and comets. They were also aware of the extra- terrestrial origin of meteorites, including iron meteorites." While there are many points of interest in these ancient texts, not the least of which is the association of meteorites with eclipses of the Sun, we are primarily interested here in reports concerning Mars. Suffice it to say that the ancient Babylonians specifically referred to meteorites falling from the planet Mars, making such objects the subject of various omens. Witness the following example: "If in the sky a meteor (train) from a planet [Mustabarru mutanu=Mars] appears: destruction of cattle will occur in the land." Yet another text has the following passage: "If a fireball [meteor] (coming from) Mars is seen..." If such reports reflect reliable eye-witness testimony-the view defended by Bjorkman-and meteorites were indeed witnessed emanating from or circling Mars, it stands to reason that the various gods identified with the red planet might likewise be associated with the hurling of rocks, with celestial demons of one form or another, or with various other phenomena typically associated with the fall of meteorites. And such is indeed the case. Nergal and Indra The dreadful war-god Nergal-expressly identified with the planet Mars-is associated with a demonic entourage in various Babylonian texts. Thus, an early hymn to Nergal invokes him as the "leader and sender of evil demons." A hymn quoted by Velikovsky describes the cohorts of Nergal/Mars as follows: "Great giants, raging demons, with awesome numbers, run at his right and at his left." If such hymns celebrate various celestial prodigies associated with the warrior-planet, as appears most probable, it is possible that meteoritic phenomena inspired a portion of their imagery. Nergal is elsewhere described as hurling great rocks from heaven. A hymn translated by Bollenrucher reads as follows: "You hurl the towering stone, shattering all plants. You hurl the stone in fury, shattering the plants in rage." In the image of the planet Mars hurling great rocks from heaven it is possible to see a reference to the fall of meteorites. The Vedic counterpart to the Babylonian Nergal, as I have documented, was the war-god Indra. Like Nergal/Mars, Indra was intimately associated with eclipses of the "Sun" and various other extraordinary celestial disturbances. And like Nergal, Indra was described as hurling great bolides. Indra's celestial missiles were described as follows in one Vedic hymn: "Thou hurlest forth from heaven the iron missile." A similar passage is the following: "And men have faith in Indra, the resplendent one, what time he hurleth down his bolt, his dart of death." Commenting on this passage, Griffith-the editor of the Rig Veda-notes that: "In this verse Indra is represented as a terrible God, and in the following verse as sometimes sending 'affliction'." As is well-known, Indra's weapon of choice was the vajra, typically understood as a thunderbolt. Indra's heaven-hurled weapon, however, is elsewhere said to be composed of metal or stone. Here Gonda observes: "Although Indra's weapon is usually explicitly designated by the term vajra, and vajra is generally described as metallic (ayasa), it is incidentally spoken of as a rock (parvata) or 'stone of, or: from, the heavens' (divo asmanam)." In Vedic hymns the word vajra is frequently paired with the epithet adrivant, literally "possessing stones (rocks) or a stone (rock)." Here scholars have traditionally assumed that this was an allusion to Indra's hurling rocks, as with a sling. Yet, whether we regard Indra's sky-borne missile as being composed of iron or stone, it is obvious that by vajra no ordinary "lightning-stroke" is meant, as the fall of stones does not typically accompany the latter phenomenon. How then are we to interpret Indra's heaven-hurled "stone"? If we approach the matter from the standpoint of comparative religion, we find that many ancient peoples likewise described "thunderbolts" as stones thrown from heaven. Blinkenberg, for example, in his landmark study of the thunderweapon in ancient lore, summarized the ancient conception of lightning as follows: "The lightning, then, is produced by a stone which shoots down from heaven to earth." Meteors, in accordance with this belief, were identified with thunderstones throughout the ancient world. G. Wainright, surveying the conceptions of the ancient Egyptians, concluded that: "In religion the meteorite and the thunderbolt are the same thing." Virtually identical beliefs prevailed in aboriginal Mesoamerica. If the original reference for Indra's heaven-hurled bolt was to a meteor-like object, both descriptions of the vajra-rock and metallic rock-would be equally appropriate, many meteorites being composed of iron. The planet Mars, moreover, was regarded as the iron-planet par excellence by ancient skywatchers and medieval alchemists alike. Other hymns suggest that Indra was associated with a meteoritic phenomenon spanning the visible heavens. Thus, various passages in the Rig Veda relate that Indra's gargantuan form dominated the skies, extending from heaven to earth: "The heaven itself attained not to thy greatness when with one hip of thine the earth was shadowed." Griffith compares this passage to another in which Indra announces: "One side of me is in the sky, and I have drawn the other down." Gonda, similarly, cites I:103:1, which likewise places a part of Indra in heaven and the rest over earth. Here Gonda points out that, "both parts combine so as to form a ketu (which may mean 'ensign', but also 'an unusual phenomenon such as a comet or meteor')." The unusual apparition associated with Indra's ketu, quite possibly, was a string of fiery meteorites hovering over the Earth like the proverbial sword of Damocles, thus uniting, as it were, heaven and earth. If Indra was the planet Mars, as the evidence seems to indicate, we have here an apparent reference to meteorites being strung out between Mars and the Earth. Also relevant here is Indra's intimate association with the Maruts, described in the Rig Veda as a celestial troop, as "men of heaven". It is with the aid of the Maruts that Indra accomplishes his greatest feats. Identifying Indra with Mars, Velikovsky speculated that the Maruts had some relation to meteoritic phenomena, perhaps being meteorites attending the red planet. Velikovsky's conjecture receives support from the fact that the Maruts are said to shine in heaven like blazing fires, or like brilliant snakes. They were also much feared for the terrible noise and commotion they wrought in heaven: "At their coming heaven as it were roars with fear." Does this not recall the terrible noise which frequently accompanies meteorites as they enter the Earth's atmosphere? The Maruts are elsewhere said to hurl down rocks from heaven. A Vedic hymn quoted by Velikovsky reads as follows: "You the powerful, who shine with your spears, shaking even what is unshakable by strength...Hurling the stone in the flight...All beings are afraid of the Maruts. May your march be brilliant, O Maruts...Shining like snakes. May that straightforward shaft of yours, O Maruts, bounteous givers, be far from us, and far the stone which you hurl!" A similar passage is the following: "This hymn will I make for the Marut host who bright in native splendor cast the mountains down...They gleam with lightning, Heroes, Casters of the Stone, wind-rapid Maruts, overthrowers of the hills, oft through desire to rain coming with storm of hail, roaring in onset, violent and exceedingly strong...O Bounteous radiant Maruts, Heroes of the sky..." Rudra The Maruts are elsewhere associated with the war-god Rudra, the latter known to share numerous features in common with Indra, various authorities suspecting an original identity of the two gods. Rudra is repeatedly invoked as the father of the Maruts; the celestial host, in turn, was called variously rudrah or rudriyah, "Rudra's sons" or "Rudra's men". Rudra's archetypal role as a leader of a host of demonic beings earned him the name Bhutipati. The demonic beings, like Rudra himself, were described as riding the wind, roaring, and being of a brilliant red color. Ernst Arbman, upon observing that the Maruts represent an essential aspect of Rudra's cult, confesses that he is at a loss to explain their original significance. Various Vedic hymns speak of the evil associated with Rudra's "arrows" or missiles, which rain forth from heaven, slaying men and cattle. If the Maruts are to be understood as a meteoritic phenomenon, as Velikovsky proposed, the passages which associate Rudra with the fall of rocks from heaven become readily understandable. Consider the following Vedic hymn: "Father of the Maruts...O Rudra, praised, be gracious to the singer: let thy hosts spare us and smite down another...May Rudra's missile turn aside and spare us, the great wrath of the impetuous One avoid us." Here Rudra is described by the very same epithet as Indra and Nergal-impetuous-as indeed are Mars-gods throughout the ancient world, a testament, in all likelihood, to the irascible and fickle nature typically accorded the red planet. A similar passage reads as follows: "To Rudra we bring these songs, whose bow is firm and strong, the self-dependent God with swiftly-flying shafts...the Conqueror whom none may overcome, armed with sharp-pointed weapons: may he hear our call...May thy bright arrow which, shot down by thee from heaven, flieth upon the earth, pass us uninjured by...Slay us not, nor abandon us, O Rudra." Apparent here is the ominous specter of the god, dealing out death indiscriminately with his heaven-hurled shafts or "arrows". Yet another passage from the Rig Veda: "To the strong Rudra bring we these our songs of praise, to him the Lord of Heroes, ...Him with the braided hair we call with reverence down, the wild-boar of the sky, the red, the dazzling shape...To him the Marut's father...Far be thy dart that killeth men or cattle: thy bliss be with us, O thou Lord of Heroes." Throughout the Rig Veda and later Vedic tradition, Rudra's malefic nature is everywhere apparent. Macdonell summarizes this aspect of his cult as follows: "Malevolence is frequently attributed to Rudra in the R.V.; for the hymns addressed to him chiefly express fear of his terrible shafts and deprecation of his wrath. He is implored not to slay or injure...to avert his great malevolence and his bolt from his worshippers...His ill will and anger are deprecated...He once even receives the epithet 'man-slaying' [as does Ares and many another Martian god]...Rudra's malevolence is still more prominent in the later Vedic texts...He is invoked not to assail his worshippers with celestial fire and to cause the lightning to descend elsewhere. He is even said to assail with fever, cough, and poison...Even the gods were afraid of the strung bow and the arrows of Rudra, lest he should destroy them. Under the name of Mahadeva he is said to slay cattle...His hosts, which attack man and beast with disease and death receive the bloody entrails of the victim...as their peculiar share of the sacrifice." Who or what, then, is Rudra? As the red boar of heaven, Rudra is to be identified with the planet Mars. His very name reflects his color-unique among the planets and relatively rare among prominent celestial bodies-the most likely etymology tracing it to an ancient word for "red" or "ruddy". As I have documented elsewhere, numerous ancient gods identified with Mars were named with a word signifying "red". Here the Celtic war-god Rudiobus offers a case in point, identified by the ancients with the Latin god Mars and sharing a root in common with Rudra. It is also noteworthy that Rudra's darts are specifically associated with the death of cattle, the very calamity associated with Martian meteorites in Babylonian omens. Indeed, Rudra's intimate association with the destruction of cattle was proverbial in Vedic and later Indian tradition. How are we to interpret Rudra's involvement with the death of cattle? Although it is probable that much of the bovine imagery associated with the escapades of Rudra/Mars is celestial in nature - witness the universality of the Bull of Heaven motive- it is not impossible that Martian meteorites actually discomfited terrestrial cattle. Support for this conjecture comes from the fact that one of the stones which fell at Shergotty is said to have killed a dog. It is also significant that Rudra is intimately associated with the onset of sickness and pestilence. As I have documented elsewhere, the planet Mars was associated with pestilence throughout the ancient world. Here the pestilence-bringing "arrows" of Rudra offer a striking parallel to those associated with other Martian gods-the Greek Apollo, for example. In light of the Vedic hymns crediting Rudra's bolides with the destruction of cattle and the onset of disease, the possibility presents itself that Martian meteorites brought unusual pathogens in their wake, afflicting cattle as well as man. Whether there is any truth to this conjecture is difficult to say apart from the finding of pathogens in future Mars explorations, but it is intriguing to find that the idea that meteorites could produce sickness or pestilence is surprisingly widespread. Thus, in his discussion of the folklore surrounding meteorites Frazer cites the Namaqua tribe of Africa, who "are greatly afraid of the meteor which is vulgarly called a falling star, for they consider it a sign that sickness is coming upon the cattle, and to escape it they will immediately drive them to some other parts of the country. They call out to the star how many cattle they have, and beg of it not to send sickness." This Namaquan prayer bears comparison with the Vedic prayers offered Rudra. And once again we recall the Babylonian omen associated with the planet Mars: "If in the sky a meteor (train) from a planet [Mustabarru mutanu=Mars] appears: destruction of cattle will occur in the land." Conclusion In this essay we have reviewed two radically different theories in an attempt to explain the anomaly presented by the finding of Mars-rocks upon the Earth. The first, which we may term the conventional theory, speculates that one or several major meteoritic impacts upon Mars dislodged rocks from its surface-in the case of the nakhlites and Chassigny, without shocking the rocks to any significant extent-whereupon they began their long voyage towards Earth. These impacts are thought to have occurred many millions of years ago (two to two hundred, depending on various interpretations of the conflicting radiometric data presented by the meteorites in question). According to this scenario, the handful of SNCs witnessed to have fallen to Earth in the past century and a half arrived millions of years after their ejection off the red planet, these small rocks enduring the 50 million mile odyssey through space practically unscathed. A central tenet of the conventional theory, it goes without saying, holds that Mars has always moved upon its present orbit since it congealed from the primordial soup that was to become the solar system several billion years ago. A wholly different explanation for the finding of Martian meteorites on terrestrial landscape results from a catastrophist theory of the recent history of the solar system. According to Velikovsky, the planet Mars only recently moved in close proximity to the Earth, participating in several spectacular cataclysms involving the Earth and its planetary neighbors. During these cataclysmic events, Mars was seen to hurl great bolides towards Earth, the capture of which was presumably made easy by the near passage of the red planet. If Velikovsky's thesis is valid, the prospect of finding Mars-rocks upon the Earth is readily understandable-nay inevitable. Velikovsky's theory, as we have seen, rests upon ancient testimony from around the world. At the heart of the controversy surrounding his ideas lies the simple question: Can we, or can we not, take seriously the ancient reports surrounding the respective planets? As we have documented here and elsewhere, ancient testimony corroborates Velikovsky's general thesis of planetary-catastrophism again and again, often in more dramatic fashion than the pioneer himself ever realized. Thus, eye- witness reports of Martian meteorites falling to Earth-far from being confined to the last 150 years-actually go back several thousand years. ---------------------------------------------- SACRIFICE AND AMNESIA By Dave Talbott A couple of comments recently concerning sacrifice and the phenomenon of amnesia have, I think, inverted the truth of the matter. Velikovsky spoke of amnesia in the wake of cosmic catastrophe. The memory of terrifying events, he suggested, was repressed because humankind could not deal with the depth of the trauma. Therefore, we could not recognize the true source of our own urge to act out cosmic violence. Here is an alternative way of viewing cosmic catastrophe and the role of amnesia. We did not forget the world falling out of control, but remembered these events to the point of obsession. The entire sweep of ritual activity at the dawn of civilization shows a preoccupation with the dramas of creation, destruction and renewal. Ritual practices were, in fact, a deliberate exercise in remembering. But this preoccupation, expressing a sense of universal rupture, could only foster a *forgetfulness* at the deepest level of human awareness - that level at which one recognizes the kinship of all life, the brotherhood of man, the unity of creation. >From the dawn of civilization onward, ancient ritual is filled with mnemonic devices. It is filled with the symbols of catastrophe. Nowhere in the world can you find an early culture that did not look back to the age of the gods in wonder and terror. But fixation on the past is the one thing *certain* to obstruct human awareness at the level of spiritual connectedness. In one form or another, all of the early religions cultivated the principle of sacrifice. If sacrifice entails "the failure of amnesia," as has been suggested, then the failure was complete from the very beginning, and the amnesia concept is essentially irrelevant. But there is another sense in which one could say that sacrifice *means* amnesia. In the elaborated memories of the Golden Age or ancestral paradise, there is no sacrifice, no war, no sickness or death, no division of nation against nation, and no division of language between man and animal, or between man and man. And thus, no need for ritual cleansing or defense. Whatever the natural conditions may have been during this celebrated epoch, they were sufficient to plant in collective memory a root metaphor for benevolent creation, cosmic harmony, and the unity of life, a discernment of "*that* place," *that* time" now standing outside of human perception, but to which philosophy, mysticism, moral teaching and higher religion would seek to direct human attention. In the wake of catastrophe, the ancestral paradise is certainly not forgotten, since the yearning for paradise is an overarching motive. But the eruption of sacrificial rites speaks volumes for forgetfulness in its deepest spiritual sense. The direct human response to catastrophe is a rush to "renew" the world through ritual practices, but it is not the world of kinship that is achieved; it is the world of division and of combat, of relentless bargaining with the gods. In the fixation on catastrophe, we ratified a human perception of our relationship to creation. We saw huge and terrifying forces outside ourselves, and clouds of chaos. Cosmic catastrophe was the proof of rupture. The world was not a safe place, and the gods could not be trusted except in the most tentative sense, under conditions which must be re-created by rites of sacrifice. The emerging consciousness was driven toward ritual forms of cleansing, purifying, and renewing the world, whereas, under the analogy of the Golden Age, no such renewal was necessary. The principle of sacrifice must be considered against the collective contest with chaos. Wherever you look in the ancient world you will see the sense of threat, the shadow of catastrophe, the ever-present "fiends of darkness" (chaos clouds) whose invasion is always imminent. While many forms of sacrifice involved the slaughter of animal and human victims, the broader concept included a vast range of rites in which the practitioners deliberately "gave up" something to the gods, to purchase something in return. Offerings of food and possessions, various forms of abstinence and renunciation, scarification and bloodletting, circumcision, castration and shaving the head were all included in the bargain. I think the purpose is clear. It was to secure a truce with the gods, a new lease on life, to make the world whole again, however tentative the bargain . That is the fundamental meaning of sacrifice - "to make holy." Under this kind of contract with the gods, there can be no holiness without some form of loss, even if someone else, a "scapegoat," is preferred. That this sense of necessity attached itself to THINGS REMEMBERED should not be overlooked. If the Golden Age provided later philosophy with one analogy, cosmic catastrophe provided another - confirming a universal rupture - and in its ritualized repetition, it would continue to feed the most profound sense of conflict, insufficiency, and danger, inviting the deeper form of forgetfulness, without which the investment in sacrifice could not have arisen. ---------------------------------------------- PLUTO: A NEW CLASS OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP Comments by Eric Douma Clark Whelton posted from CCNet Digest: Just to make the debate a little more interesting, some people even argue that Pluto has actually shown itself to be an active comet. When it reached perihelion, sublimation for its surface gave rise to an extensive temporary atmosphere (a coma), which is recondensing as Pluto moves away from the Sun. If you really wanted to be difficult you could suggest that Pluto should be renamed C/1930 B1 (Thombaugh), or C/1930 B1 (Pluto) - it could not be a periodic comet unless the rule [is waived] stating that only objects of less than 200 years orbital period should be designated as a periodic comet. This was the solution adopted for Chiron which is now designated both (2060) Chiron (as an asteroid) and as 95P/Chiron (as a periodic comet observed now at three perihelion passages since 1895 and at no less than 29 oppositions). If the same rule were followed for Pluto, it would become 141P/Pluto, always supposing that the 200-year period rule could be waived. Such a solution would certainly maintain Pluto's name and give it a special status. The objection here is that comets and planets are clearly different type of object, whilst asteroids and planets are generically similar - to have an object classed as comet and planet would take us back to the days of Velikovsky. ERIC DOUMA comments: Well, well, wouldn't you know it!! Planets can definitely show cometary features. Mind you, the last sentence only means that the person in question does not even understand that for Velikovsky to be brought back into the limelight it is not required that they "class" the object both as comet and planet. With this very report Velikovsky is brought back into consideration because his theory does not require that what the ancients saw was in fact a comet as they are classed by modern science. So, here then is finally some acknowledged prove that Velikovsky's (and previous catastrophists') "planetary size 'comet' on highly errant path" scenario is possible, and is in fact still occurring in the solar system today. I find it a little disingenuous for this person to object to Velikovsky's theory based on the fact that the ancients (because they didn't know better) called the object a comet because that is what it looked like, in the very report about modern astronomy's uncertainty about how to classify an object that looks like a comet and is characteristically exactly the same as the object the ancients saw. Seems to me that it is fair to say that if modern astronomers can be 'fooled' into thinking about it as a comet, it is certainly at least as reasonable to suggest that ancient people with much less astronomical information could properly think of such an object as a comet. This implicates Velikovsky no matter how the Pluto is classed in the end. ---------------------------------------------- THE SOLAR GAS RECORD IN LUNAR SAMPLES AND METEORITES Comments by Wal Thornhill Thanks to Clark Whelton for posting the appended news item. Velikovsky claimed that the lunar surface would show evidence of implantation of gases from the atmosphere of Mars, in particular showing an enhancement of the so-called noble gases. The following report tends to support the idea that the Moon's environment was different in the past, whether due to ion implantation from gases from Mars' atmosphere and/or the Moon having existed elsewhere, independent of the present Sun. The problem for the solar nebular accretion theory for the formation of planets is that none of the terrestrial planets show evidence of a major component of primordial or captured solar- composition gases. This is not surprising if we have only recently become members of the Sun's family. We need to determine the isotopic ratios of the noble gases in the atmosphere of Saturn to possibly advance that proposal from the Saturnists. Even then, we have to recognise that in the process of the violent electrical disruption of proto-Saturn that nuclear transformations will take place, distorting the usual isotopic ratios. Chondritic meteorites show evidence of such anomalies, giving rise to implausible ad-hoc notions of a nearby supernova explosion happening just at the time the meteorites were condensing from gas and dust. It is far simpler to argue that meteorites are formed in powerful planetary discharges. As for the Moon, I have argued before that capture is much more likely in the Electric Universe model. And the Moon would look completely at home if it were placed among the large moons of the gas-giant planets. So my bet is that the Moon was most likely a part of the Saturnian wagon train, captured by the Earth after the breakup of that train. The evidence reported below seems concordant with that view. Wal Thornhill ........................................... THE SOLAR GAS RECORD IN LUNAR SAMPLES AND METEORITES R. Wieler: The solar noble gas record in lunar samples and meteorites. SPACE SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, Vol.85, No.1-2, pp.303-314 ETH ZURICH, ISOTOPE GEOL, NO C61, CH-8092 ZURICH, SWITZERLAND Lunar soil and certain meteorites contain noble gases trapped from the solar wind at various times in the past. The progress in the last decade to decipher these precious archives of solar history is reviewed. The samples appear to contain two solar noble gas components with different isotopic composition. The solar wind component resides very close to grain surfaces and its isotopic composition is identical to that of present-day solar wind. Experimental evidence seems by now overwhelming that somewhat deeper inside the grains there exists a second, isotopically heavier component. To explain the origin of this component remains a challenge, because it is much too abundant to be readily reconciled with the known present day flux of solar particles with energies above those of the solar wind. The isotopic composition of solar wind noble gases may have changed slightly over the past few Ga, but such a change is not firmly established. The upper limit of similar to 5% per Ga for a secular increase of the He-3/He-4 ratio sets stringent limits on the amount of He that may have been brought from the solar interior to the surface (cf. Bochsler, 1992). Relative abundances of He, Ne, and Ar in present-day solar wind are the same as the long term average recorded in metallic Fe grains in meteorites within error limits of some 15-20%. Xe, and to a lesser extent Kr, are enriched in the solar wind similar to elements with a first ionisation potential < 10 eV, although Kr and Xe have higher FIPs. This can be explained if the ionisation time governs the FIP effect (Geiss and Bochsler, 1986). Copyright 1999, Institute for Scientific Information Inc. ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: [Ed note: the SIS Website address has changed to: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ ] Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovskian/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.e-z.net/~mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the free newsletter page and double click on the image of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge, to access the back issues. --- You are currently subscribed to kroniatalk as: mikamar at e-z.net To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-kroniatalk-36515E at telelists.com