Topic: More support for the Exploded Planet hypothesis?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … roids.html
Scientists turned planetary detectives say they may have solved a solar system whodunit: What caused a cataclysmic asteroid assault on Earth and neighboring planets some 3.9 billion years ago?
Researchers suspect that the devastating bombardment, which lasted between 20 and 200 million years, originated in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
The paper this article is based on assumes the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars is all that remains of an aborted planet that failed to coalesce when the solar system was forming about 4.55 billion years ago. The Exploding Planet hypothesis says the planet did form, but later exploded. The asteroid belt is all that is left of this mystery planet. How interesting that these scientists have pinpointed the asteroid belt as the source of the "Late Heavy Bombardment" rather than some source exterior to the solar system. They think existing asteroids were swept up by Jupiter and slung into nearby heavenly bodies, but I wonder if the explosion of the missing planet was responsible for the bombardment?