Recap

Planet Theories & Mars

Research astronomer Tom Van Flandern discussed his exploded planets hypothesis, Big Bang theories, Mars artifacts, and the proposed changes in descriptions of our planetary line up. The definition of a planet is somewhat arbitrary he pointed out in that there is no particular cut off in terms of size. According to the new propsoal, Pluto's moon Charon would be a planet because its center-of-mass is not located within Pluto. Van Flandern noted that Earth's moon is very gradually shifting further away, and by this definition, it could, in the far off future, also be considered a planet.

In his Exploded Planets Hypthesis, the solar system originally had 12 planets with a number of them twinned (formed on either side of the Sun) such as Venus & Earth and Jupiter & Saturn. Mars was likely a moon of a planet that exploded, which became the remnants of the Asteroid Belt, he said. He suggested that this event occurred 65 million years ago, and the impact of debris hitting Earth led to the extinction of the dinosaurs & other life forms.

Richard C. Hoagland of Enterprise Mission joined in on the latter half of the discussion which focused on Mars and its artifacts. Hoagland hypothesized that a war between planets might have wiped out Mars' global civilization, while Van Flandern said the evidence of artificial activity was suggestive of what we'd expect to find if a secondary civilization (possibly escaping from the Exploded Planet) had set up stations or outposts.

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Van Flandern Material

Tom Van Flandern discussed Martian Anomalies such as the "trees" pictured left. He also spoke about the comparative sizes for new planet candidates (graphic-- scroll down).