A phase anomaly of Mercury was observed:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1969JBAA...79..286JA. Mallana makes several big assumptions in deriving his model (Venus middle atmosphere).
But there are great controversies concerning the composition of the venusian middle atmosphere:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999JE001085/pdfhttp://www.issibern.ch/teams/venusso2/multimedia/pdf/Krasnopolsky_06.pdfhttps://phys.org/news/2015-03-unexplained-layer-venus-atmosphere.htmlMoreover, Mallana is going to have to explain the Ammizaduga Venus tables.
One day, in 1849, a certain archaeologist made an important discovery at Nineveh.
Once these tablets were brought to England, they wished they had never found them in the first place.
And that is because the Ammizaduga Venus tables show that the orbit followed by Venus in the past was markedly different from that observed in the present.
http://www.skepticfiles.org/neocat/ammi.htmCharles Ginenthal (Sagan and Velikovsky) has a great deal to
say about the Ammizaduga tablets, pp 281 - 284, quoting Livio C.
Stecchini's "The Velikovsky Affair":
"The Venus tablets of Ammizaduga is the most striking document
of early Babylonian astronomy. These tablets, of which we
possess several copies of different origin, report the dates
of the helical rising and setting of the planet Venus during
a period of 21 years...
"Since the first effort at explanation of Archibald Henry
Sayce in 1874, these figures have challenged the wit of a
score of experts of astronomy and cuneiform philology.
(Father Franz Xavier) Kugler (1862 - 1929), a recognized major
authority on Babylonian and biblical astronomy, chronology and
mythology, opposed the contention of those who claim that
these documents must be dismissed as nonsense." [because they
do not conform to present orbital patterns for Venus]
"Let me give some typical passages from the tablet:
"In the month of Sivan, on the twenty fifth day, Ninsianna
[that is, Venus] disappeared in the east; she remained absent
from the sky for two months, six days; in the month Ulul on
the 24'th day, Ninsianna appeared in the West - the heart of
the land is happy. In the month Nisan on the 27'th day,
Ninsianna disappeared in the West; she remained absent from
the sky for seven days; in the month Ayar on the third day,
Ninsianna appeared in the east - hostilities occur in the
land, the harvest of the land is successful.
"The first invisibility mentioned in these lines involves a
disappearance in the east, an invisibility of two months, six
days, and a reappearance in the west. This seems to be a
superior conjunction. The second invisibility involves a
disappearance in the west, an invisibility of seven days, and
a reappearance in the east. This seems to be an inferior
conjunction. Most of the data in groups one and three on the
tablet are of this form. But the lengths and spacings of
these invisibilities have a certain irregularity about them,
and they do not conform to the manner in which Venus moves at
present.
"The data given in the second group on the tablet do have
regularity - even too much regularity to be believable, - but
they do not conform to the present state of affairs
either.....
'How explain these observations of the ancient astronomers, modern astronomers and historians have asked. Were they written in a conditional form ("If Venus disappeared on the 11th of Sivan . . .") ? No, they were expressed categorically.
The observations were "inaccurately" registered, decided some authors. However, inaccuracy may account for a few days' difference but not for a difference of months.
The observations were "inaccurately" registered, decided some authors. However, inaccuracy may account for a few days' difference but not for a difference of months. "The invisibility of Venus at superior conjunction is given as 5 months 16 days instead of the correct difference of 2 months 6 days," noted the translators of the text, wonderingly."
If the tables are true, then both the attractive law of gravity AND Kepler's third law of motion are completely wrong; if they have been falsified, then we have another extraordinary proof of how the "ancient" history has been forged, confirming the findings of Dr. Gunnar Heinsohn:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110720184710/http://www.specialtyinterests.net/heinsohn.html