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Phantasphere, v. 1, issue 1, January 1945
Page 3
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------phantasphere------3 NOVAS IN CLOVER By Donald A. Wollheim We are deriving a certain amount of mild amusement and mild irritations by perusal of various articles dealing with the problem of the creation of planets. A recent one in Astounding Science Fiction by the professional astronomer Richardson adds to this. You see, some ten years ago, we expressed our opinion that the birth of planets is a natural by-product of the emergence of novae. That when a sun passes into the stage of internal explosion known as "nova", it casts off matter sufficient to create planets. That whether this matter falls back into the parent sun or wanders off forever into space is of no importance. For since there are dozens of novae today and have been countless millions in past aeons, all space is jammed full of loose particles of matter, of sizes from the tinest meteoric pebble to huge Jupiter-sized chunks. And that no sun, however small, can long avoid capturing some of this junk. Hence all suns have some sort of attendant bodies--even if only a few wispy comets. Almost all suns will have some attendants of planetary nature, even if only of asteroid size. Most Sol-sized bodies, whether single, binary, trinary, or what have you, will have at least one or two Mars-size bodies and probably lots more.
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------phantasphere------3 NOVAS IN CLOVER By Donald A. Wollheim We are deriving a certain amount of mild amusement and mild irritations by perusal of various articles dealing with the problem of the creation of planets. A recent one in Astounding Science Fiction by the professional astronomer Richardson adds to this. You see, some ten years ago, we expressed our opinion that the birth of planets is a natural by-product of the emergence of novae. That when a sun passes into the stage of internal explosion known as "nova", it casts off matter sufficient to create planets. That whether this matter falls back into the parent sun or wanders off forever into space is of no importance. For since there are dozens of novae today and have been countless millions in past aeons, all space is jammed full of loose particles of matter, of sizes from the tinest meteoric pebble to huge Jupiter-sized chunks. And that no sun, however small, can long avoid capturing some of this junk. Hence all suns have some sort of attendant bodies--even if only a few wispy comets. Almost all suns will have some attendants of planetary nature, even if only of asteroid size. Most Sol-sized bodies, whether single, binary, trinary, or what have you, will have at least one or two Mars-size bodies and probably lots more.
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