It would therefore manifestly be less as the planet was more distant from the sun.

In the case of each of the four smaller planets (only the four asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, were known at that time), the velocity of explosion indicated by their observed motion would be less than twenty times the velocity of a cannon ball."[6] [Footnote 6: Grant's History of Physical Astronomy, p.

241.] Instead, then, of being discredited by its assumption of so strange a catastrophe, Olbers's theory fell into desuetude because of its apparent failure to account for the position of the orbits of many of the asteroids after a large number of those bodies had been discovered.

He calculated that the orbits of all the fragments of his exploded planet would have nearly equal mean distances, and a common point of intersection in the heavens, through which every fragment of the original mass would necessarily pass in each revolution.

At first the orbits of the asteroids discovered seemed to answer to these conditions, and Olbers was even able to use his theory as a means of predicting the position of yet undetected asteroids.