From: ted@loft.tnolan.com
In article ,
Robert Woodward wrote:
>In article ,
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
>> Paul S Person writes:
>> >On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 23:50:42 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D=B4Oliveiro
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >>On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 17:10:17 -0500, William Hyde wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Alas, the mass of the entire asteroid belt is not enough to
>> >>> significantly increase the mass of Mars.
>> >>
>> >>I can remember some SF stories suggesting that the Asteroid Belt is
>> >>the debris left over from a planet which was destroyed in an ancient
>> >>war.
>> >>
>> >>Fredric Brown=92s =93Letter To A Phoenix=94 (still sticks in my mind =
>> >from my
>> >>earliest readings in SF):
>> >>
>> >> I hope that never again is rediscovered the weapon Thragan used
>> >> against her colony on Skora, which was then the fifth planet until
>> >> the Thragans blew it into asteroids.
>> >>
>> >>But yes, the actual mass of the asteroids is way too small to make up
>> >>a significant planet.
>> >>
>> >>In fact, I have heard our Solar System described as consisting of =93the
>> >>Sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris=94. The entire mass of the rest of all
>> >>the bodies other than those first two put together doesn=92t even come
>> >>to the mass of Jupiter.
>>
>> Hogan did postulate that the earth's moon was originally
>> part of the soi disant fifth planet that occupied an orbit
>> coincident with the asteroid belt prior to its destruction.
>
>IIRC (it has been decades since I read those books), our Moon was the
>moon of that fifth planet.
>
The first one is a classic regardless of the cosmology. The rest, not so much.
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