New Planetary Systems Stun Astronomers 189
jeffsenter writes "The NYTimes (free reg. req.) has coverage of two new outlandish planetary systems announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. One system has a planet x17 as big as Jupiter, the largest ever. The other is around a red dwarf only 15 lightyears away. It has two jupiter class planets in synchronized orbits." I'm not happy when astronomers describe things as "frightening".
Starwars (Score:3)
Looks to me as if it is a beta deathstar for episode 2.
LGM planets? (Score:3)
Does anybody remember how the first neutron starts got named LGM-number? Astronomers heard the periodic radio source and thought that it was a transmission from an alien source - hence, Little Green Men. Only later did they discover that these weren't little green men, but an astronomical occurance.
I think that the same thing is going to be true with the planets that are "too good to be true" - e.g., they aren't planets, but something else entirely. It would make far more sense.
Finally. (Score:2)
Seriously though, that's pretty cool. Who knew, 30 years ago, that we'd be discovering several planets every year -- let alone those of such amazing size! I'm not one of those alien-buff types, but every time more of these are discovered within our viewable range, it only encourages the idea that life somewhere else in this universe is more and more likely.
I'm to young to have experienced the "ooh"s and "aah"s that my parent's generation were able to when man first orbited the earth and landed on the moon. But little things like this bring a spark of excitement that astronomy and space exploration has been missing for sooooo damn long.
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seumas.com
Partners link (Score:5)
Posting anonymously to avoid any accusations of being a karma whore.
Cool - lets see some pics! (Score:3)
I love these sort of images...
What is "frightening". . . (Score:2)
I note that it will be "interesting", in the Chinese sense of the word. . .there is likely to be a great deal of acrimony and controversy at the next few Planetary Astronomy symposia. . .
No registration required, be under 13 (Score:2)
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
In fact, if you consider the bizzar nature of neurton stars (spining at relativistic speeds, exotic matter - neutronium) LGM is the simplest explanation - so apply Occam to to that!
By the way Occam's razor is actually "if two explantions are equally good pick the simplest"
Re:the link (Score:1)
Not a planet (Score:3)
DC comics also has synchronized planets. (Score:2)
Other explainations probable. (Score:2)
The simplest being a brown dwarf. This is an object that astronomers have predicted for some time... an object not quite large enough to support sustained nuclear fusion, but too large to be classed a planet.
Why is this outlandish and amazing? (Score:2)
Now, if you tell me that's a Dyson's Sphere around a sun in a binary system, you've got my attention!
Re:the link (Score:3)
Re:Finally. (Score:1)
Makes me happy (Score:1)
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
They don't know any characteristics about this object yet, it may mean a new class of objects which would mean that current theory needs revising. It might be a brown dwarf. It might be a planet, which would mean that current theories need fine tuning. The state of the art in terms of theory is constantly under revision, thats the difference between science and religion.
Re:Cool - lets see some pics! (Score:1)
"The objects could not be seen in the telescopes, but the effects of their gravitational pull could be detected in the distinct wobbles of their stars. Astronomers tracked these perturbations for at least two years before determining that they signaled the presence of the two planetary systems."
No pictures for you. Or anyone else for that matter. Of course, they're relatively close by, you could go see them for yourself.
Re:Finally. (Score:2)
Only problem is that we'll then get eaten by the Mutant Star Goat.
I don't get it. (Score:1)
of registering jupiter-size planets? If so,
isn't it a bit early to start reworking current
theories of planetary formation?
K.
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Re:space is big (Score:1)
Re:Monolith? (Score:1)
On another note, *if* the wonderful thing should happen, will there be writing in alien for us to read? (see 2010) :)
SETI would be thrilled I guess...
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How about this... (Score:1)
Does it have moons? (Score:3)
When the next generation of big, badass telescopes goes into production, it's going to be neat to see how man moons this guy has, and what kind of stress they go through. If anywhere in explored/known space is going to have a M-Class planet to live on, this seems like a likely candidate.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
When we get the Space Interferometry Mission up, and possibly other more advanced interferometers, it's likely we will discover a much greater number of smaller planets, due to the fact that planet size probably looks somewhat like a gaussian distribution. It's taken us years to find around 40 of these Jupiter sized planets. In 10 years or so, when SIM goes up, expect for us to start finding thousands of smaller planets in more Earth-like orbits.
RevRigel
Bouncin of the walls... (Score:2)
As for the possibility of it being neither a planet or a brown dwarf..i dont get that, a mass is either caused by the compression of material (sunlike) of the fragmentation of material (planetlike)...hmm unless you got a very large planet expeled from a star in the early stages of formation...that could possibly 'steal' alot of the contracting gas and become a sort of hybrid.
Re:Cool - lets see some pics! (Score:1)
Might pop and take a look though...
Re:Other explainations probable. (Score:1)
Re:LGM planets? (Score:1)
No, it's actually:
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate", or, in English, "Plurality should not be posited without necessity".
However, the applicable context of the Razor is that, "The simplest or most obvious answer is generally the correct one".
Another/Same story... (Score:2)
psxndc
Re:Bouncin of the walls... (Score:1)
Some point I must admit, it is very hard to draw conclusions as the evidence is quite circumstantial, as what I've heard of this technology anyway. Hopefully more advanced technology will provide more confident answers.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:1)
She never really thought it was an intelligent source, she was only hoping to be modded up as funny! :-)
Re:space is big (Score:1)
anyway, i rather suspect the whole things the surface of a 5 dimensional donut, but its probably best we dont go into that here.
Re:It's not that surprising (Score:1)
Epicycles? (Score:2)
Is there a reason we keep seeing it like this? The last time epicycles had a go around, they were trying to use them as proof that the Earth was the center of the universe...
---- INTERMISSION ----
(stolen without permission from Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, et al of Monty Python)
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
[boom]
[slurp]
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
--
So what the scientists were wrong? (Score:1)
I don't know why they have this kind of attitude that they know everything, and if they find something that they think is impossible it scares them, or then they try to debunk it right away. Sometimes I find that when I meet scientists that they have the biggest egos of all the people I have known.
Re:the link (Score:1)
---
"You just stranded one of the world's greatest leaders in San Dimas!"
In more frightening news... (Score:5)
Upon closer examination, Dr. Marcy found that this planet was, in fact, Marlin Brando. "We had known he was growing in mass and size to truely impressive dimentions, but no one had realized just how tremendous he had become."
Until recently, Mr. Brando's publicist had been dodging reporters questions as to the corpulent thespians whereabouts, and said that the actor was simply "taking an extended rest at an undisclosed location".
After the revelation that Mr. Brando was actually in orbit around a star system some 15 light years away, very few people were actually surprised.
Re:What is "frightening". . . (Score:1)
Frightening? (Score:4)
Why would it be frightening? I would say if it proves to be true it merely exposes our current theories as being false. It's amazing, though, how much once we write a guesstimate (usually surrounding by lots of highly subjective metrics and calculations based on those guesstimate initial values and we call that scientific research and hold it up as infalliable) we consider it the law.
I think a parallel is with a saying that I hear quite often that drives me nuts : When anyone claims that it is "against the laws of nature/physics/etc." for a bumblebee to fly. OF COURSE it's not against the laws, but rather it's an indication that either the observations (parading as laws) are invalid, or the analysis on the way the bee flies is incorrect. But to hear schooled people actually claim that it defies the laws just boggles the mind. It's MAGIC.
Re:Why is this outlandish and amazing? (Score:2)
In light of that dark matter is one of the most interesting subjects in astronomy, this could be interesting.
Distance (Score:1)
ONLY 15 LY away??? (Score:1)
In fact, you are wrong (Score:1)
Re:Finally. (Score:1)
For example, for decades, we've said "no two people have the same fingerprints". Well, we know that at least one person has that set of fingerprints. But based on each unique set, we can't make the claim that out of the billions and billions of pairs of hands out there, someone must have the same fingerprints.
But we don't. We state that no two people could possibly have the same fingerprints. So how can we apply that same logic to saying "well, we only know of one inhabited planet, but there are zillions of others and chances are that one or more have life"?
Now, if we found a second person with the same set of fingerprints, that opens the door -- could there be three? Ten? Thousands? Same with inhabited planets. With just one planet known (ours), it can go either way. But once (if) we find a second, then the numbers could be huge.
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seumas.com
Re:Why is this outlandish and amazing? (Score:5)
The simplest explanation for these apparent anomalies is that we're not getting an unbiased sample in the systems that we are finding. Our methods for finding solar systems (look for periodic wobbles in the spectrum of a star) is biased to finding large planets near stars and large planets in tidally locked orbits. And look! This is what we've found.
The real question is could we detect our own solar systems at these distances (>100 LY from Earth) with these methods. I'm no astronomer, but I don't think so.
Re:Other explainations probable. (Score:1)
So the question is not whether it is a planet or a brown dwarf or whatever, but why the hell fusion didn't start and form a star when you've got such a massive object? In other words, when you expect that the largest object that hasn't sustained fusion is 13 Jupiter masses, how come we see an object with 17 Jupiter masses that doesn't have sustained fusion.
Planet? (Score:2)
I mean, Jupiter is a planet, right? Maybe. It actually radiates a ton of infrared radiation, due to friction as it's atmosphere slowly compresses (one millimeter a year, or so I am told). So, what is Jupiter *now*?
I thought I had a nice equation that linked mass and wavelength for a nice blackbody radiator, but I don't (grrr). I have a good one relating Temp and wavelength, but not mass. Damn astrophysics!
Re:Finally. (Score:1)
Gotta love it (Score:1)
The star is only 15 light-years away, in the constellation Aquarius. Its two planets are of modest size; one is about half the mass of Jupiter, the other nearly twice Jupiter's.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
a thought (Score:3)
How about this: an extraterrestrial civilization lives in a solar system, hopping from planet to planet exploiting the resources. After it has used up all the resources of the solar system, or perhaps when the star is starting to die, it uses the remaining planets (the ones it is not on) as fuel to blast itself to another promising solar system. Repeat this process. Leaving us to witness a whole bunch of solar systems with just one planet revolving around them. Perhaps in the two planet system they shot off the smaller inner planet and used the outer planet as a gravitational boost. Might make a good SF story if someone hasn't already written it.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
All they are able to do is detect a large gavitational fluctuation, right? So, maybe that large graviational fluctuation is really just a large mass of dark matter? Or perhaps an entire "small dark galaxy" that has somehow been captured in an orbit of a regular star?
I'm not really a scientist, and don't know if any of these possibilities are realistic. But I think at the very least it could be an interesting theory for the scientists to think about if it was possible. But, maybe I'm totally off-base. I just like thinking of things that are way out there. And this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
Proportions?! (Score:1)
15 lightyears is quite a lot in my world! But then again i also think that 7-11, my pizzaria, my job is faaar away, so don't take my word for it
Re:LGM and missed Nobel Prizes. (Score:3)
Moral of the story: Choose your thesis advisor carefully.
Re:It's not that surprising (Score:1)
Re:the link (Score:1)
Why is the former impossible? Geometrically, two objects could be in different (but congruent) elliptical orbits. They would have the same period but follow different paths and approach the star at different times -- or maybe even at the same time. Is there no gravitationally stable configuration of ellipses and orbital phases? I should image that two ellipses centered on opposite sides of the star with planets in opposition would be stable.
Re:DC comics also has synchronized planets. (Score:1)
You can move your mouse over it, and read your status line. Then you will see why...
But if you want to get rid of your appetite for lunch/evening dinner, or perhaps even lose your lunch, by all means, go ahead...
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Re:Bouncin of the walls... (Score:1)
Re:Cool - lets see some pics! (Score:4)
Yahoo article [yahoo.com]
NASA Ames Research center [nasa.gov] Click on NEWS or here [nasa.gov]
And finally pictures, well, actually graphs which illustrate the dance can been seen at exoplanets.org [exoplanets.org]
Ticks me off, really, I bust my knuckles to do research for article submissions and some twit only puts up a link to NY Times and /. puts it up.
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Re:Frightening? (Score:1)
I agree. It's very unfortunate to put it that way. But, what the heck, astronomers need media attention too, you know! ;-)
Yep. It's simply a matter (in this case), that you can't model a bumble bee with rigid wings.... If you do that, you come out with the wrong answer, not surprisingly.... :-)
It's not a planet.. (Score:1)
Its a Dyson's Sphere around a white dwarf!!!
Could a small star fit inside a a sphere 17 times larger than Jupiter? I guess the question is whether it's 17 times larger by volumn or diameter.
Re:Heres another mindfuck (Score:1)
We Thought We Understood? (Score:5)
the full diversity of planets.
What's frightening to me is if they really thought they understood these things.
We've been able to find planets outside our solar system for what, a few years now? And we expect to have "a thorough comprehension of their diversity?" We're still finding stuff on our own planet that blows our minds.
The universe is going to hold some serious surprises for a Real Long Time to come. Please check your arrogance at the door. Especially with things we have mostly theories about and very little data.
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Earth-like moons to the ESP Jupiters (Score:3)
Planet formation theory is taking a real battering, though, as none of the theorists have predicted this kind of planetary distribution. This is of course, a Good Thing (tm) as then the theorists can ask for more money and jobs to get bigger computers to run simulations on.
Doppler techniques only get you the Jupiter size planets close in - to get more earth-sized planets requires different techniques.
In fact, my bet is that the next big discovery will be earth sized moons around the transiting planetary system HD 209458, as you can detect the presence of a moon by timing the exact moment of the beginning of the planets' eclipse of the parent star. It requires a lot of careful work, though...
Re:Distance (Score:1)
the other two are alpha centauri a and b
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Re:In fact, you are wrong (Score:1)
There are numerous possible configurations (Score:1)
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
Re:the link (Score:2)
Re:space is big (Score:1)
From what I understand it's finite but unbounded. Meaning that there's only so much stuff in it, but you can't reach the end of it (space being curved and all). Wacky.
Dyson sphere? (Score:4)
Re:No registration required, be under 13 (Score:1)
No, because it's not. Duh.
When I steal something from you, you no longer have it. Copying or viewing information does not take it away from you.
If businesses can't deal with the market realities then they will lose money. In this case the market realities include the fact that a substantial number of people will decline to give up personal information (even without direct links, many of us use the "cypherpunks" (or for the NYT, "cypherpunk01") generic login on such sites), and many of us use ad filters. They don't need your self-righteous moralizing, they need an acceptance of the situatation and a business plan to profit from it.
Oh, and advertising-supported is not free.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:Finally. (Score:1)
We have yet to actually see any of the alleged planets outside of our own solar system. Until we actually have some form of photographic evidence that these "planetary objects" exist, a healthy dose of skepticism is entirely appropriate. I'm really, truly looking forward to getting proof, because as things stand, the astronomers aren't quite sure of what they're discovering. There's conjecture and speculation, true, but the most recent findings have shown them that their theories might not be as secure a basis as they once surmised.
Re:No registration required, be under 13 (Score:1)
Actually, I'm a forth biggot, but you get that. Chill friend, nobody *really* cares. Doubt NYTIMES do either, if they did they'd actiually put a real password on it.
Notice the "Anonymous Coward thing" on your post. Think hard about that one...... Bah. Trolls suck. I'm ranting so Mod me down I guess.
Re:It's not a planet.. (Score:1)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Actually all they're doing is seeing how much the stars wobble. They assume this is due to planets tugging on the stars.
But I have to wonder if there aren't other explanations for these rotational wobbles besides orbiting bodies...could they be induced by long-ago gravitational encounters with other stars passing stars? Could they be left over from stellar formation somehow?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Ho Hum... (Score:2)
Jupiter sized planets are a bore these days. When we have the technology to find Earth sized planets, that will be exciting.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
- Assuming that the existance of one type of radio source can imply the existance of a whole alien civilisation, about which we know nothing?
- Assuming that this is simply an astronomical object that does not imply the existance of an independent intelligent species from ours?
The first option raises too many issues and too many unknowns. The second is simpler.Re:We Thought We Understood? (Score:2)
It amazes me how most slashdot readers react to things without even thinking about it. The point is we DON'T know a lot about the universe, but if we assume we know a little more than we can prove, then we can put that knowledge to work and actually test it.
It amazes me how most slashdot readers react to things without even thinking about it. The point is we DON'T know a lot about the universe, but if we assume we know a little more than we can prove, then we can put that knowledge to work and actually test it.
Re:What is "frightening". . . (Score:2)
Physics has rules. The universe and everything else is governed by these rules. We've been studying our brains out through observation and experiment for several centuries now and there has been good reason to believe that we'd puzzled out stuff like how planets form and how big they can be.
What would be frightening is if the reaction from the astronomical community was not "We thought we understood" but rather "We understand, so these cannot be planets. Now let's put all this behind us and get on with the business of running the country."
Re:Finally. (Score:2)
There is a lunch riding on this.
Yah, I was surprised to learn that a planet bigger than Jupiter wouldn't be a Sun. In fact, so should Arthur C. Clarke. Recall that 2010 had all those monoliths on the surface of Jupiter gathering space debris to tip the mass of the planet over the critical mass/diameter ratio to turn it into a star. But I can't recall if the theoretical ratio was less than an order of magnitude bigger than Jupiter. I guess - if all this news is true - that it has to be greater, and judging from the level of surprise among the astronomers, we need to revise our cosmologic logic.
Someone posted that the ratio is 80x Jupiters. That sounds large, but... IANAC (I am not a cosmetologist)...
Re:Bouncin of the walls... (Score:2)
There's always the "earth" model - two smaller planets have glancing blow and result in planet and large moon - but both of the smaller planets would be far larger than Jupiter. We can understand collisions between rocky planets, but what would a gas giant collision look like? Esp. when you realize that the collision between the "cores" will undoubtably produce a lot of degenerate matter and even nuclear fusion?
No matter how you look at it, a "moon" solution raises a lot of difficult questions. You're replacing one question with a dozen more difficult ones - not the way science usually works!
Finally, because of orbital dynamics there's no chance that any planet could have two large moons. Any large moon will eject other moons over geological time. This effect can be clearly seen in Saturn's rings, where even small moons have cleared bands.
Comments (Score:2)
Presently, there's no good reason to beleive that the two criteria for distinguishing between planets and brown dwarfs (mass and how they formed) are consistant. It could be that objects with larger masses form one way. Objects with smaller masses form another. However, it's also possible (and IMHO more likely) that the two formation mechanisms can both produce objects with the same masses somewhere near the transition point or maybe there's a mass range that neither mechanism can produce. Finding a 17 M_J object around a star with another planet shouldn't be that suprising. We've already found planets around stars that have 1 M_sol binary companions (although farther away). Since it's lower mass, it can be closer in.
What's this previous research that 17 M_J planets didn't exist? Marcy and Butler looked at hundreds of stars and didn't find any, but the Geneva group which looked at many more stars (but with larger noise) did. So we already knew they were out there. It's still nice to get a better handle on their frequency, but I certainly wouldn't say previous reserach disproved their existance.
About the other system... Finding two planets in resonant orbits, should not be considered very suprising either. In fact the first extrasolar planets discovered were in resonant orbits (three around PSR 1527 (I think I got the ID right)). Maybe it was suprising then, but a plethora of papers have been published on the system, so that should have been expected to show up eventually. True some formation mechanisms require a stage with large tidal effects (red giant for the PSR system), but those theorists can use the PMS stage for this system, although that may put some interesting requirements on the time to form the planets.
Oh yeah, analyzing resonant orbits from radial velocity data can be especially complicated. So I wouldn't be too suprised if one of them turned out to be a mistake. On the other hand, the complications can provide very strong and dramatic confirmation of resonant orbits (via the objects mutual pertubations), if the data is good enough and the time scales are short compared to the observations. They may already have that (in which case they were very cautous) or they maybe announcing it hoping this critiism will help them justify making more observations. I haven't seen the data yet, so I just don't know...
Anyway, nice work, guys. Please keep the observations coming.
Epicycles weren't added! (Score:2)
No, that's a myth. The myth has been uncritcally accepted by a huge number of historians of science and scientists, including, and perhaps most importantly, by Thomas Kuhn. It's still a myth, and it was in fact completely debunked by Owen Gingerich 30 years ago. He has been fighting it ever since, but it dies slowly.
The point is, they never improved the observations, so there were no need to improve the model. Gingerich recomputed the Alfonsine Tables, and showed that they were based on a purely Ptolemaic model, even the input parameters were almost identical to the ones used by Ptolemy himself.
I wrote a paper titled "Some popular myths about the history of astronomy" [astro.uio.no] (214 kB, gzipped Postscript) where I attempt to sum up debunking done of three popular myths.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
You see, you can test the Occam-ness of theory A versus simpler theory B by asking: does the added complexity change anything? Does it explain more? Does it predict more? Does it encompass some theory C that previously appeared unrelated? If the answers are no, then theory A is assumed as inferior to theory B.
Not that theory A will necessarily turn out to be wrong. One could read between the lines of some early explanations of light and find people theorizing wave-particle duality, but until quantum theory, such a duality theory would have lost out in not providing additional explanation for light's behavior beyond the theory that light was strictly a wave.
Re:LGM and missed Nobel Prizes. (Score:3)
While we're at it, the LGM grad student's name was Jocelyn Bell, now added Burnell, and here's her homepage [open.ac.uk].
Re:Does it have moons? (Score:2)
A few measly million miles of distance doesn't mean anything when you get into astronomical measurements.
What does matter is that there is a significant increase and decrease in the amount of sunlight the planet/moon receives, what really matters is the mean amount of light it receives and the surface/atmospheric albedo. If the moon's surface is *mostly* water like Earth's, then you wind up with a situation where the planet cools and warms slowly with the relative extremes depending on the period of its orbit. Io orbits Jupiter about every day and a half. I'm not sure how the math works, but it seems like an Earth-sized moon would orbit about once every five-seven days around a planet that is 17 times larger. (Please correct my math!) If the mean distance is earthlike, and the mean sunlight is sol-like, humans could still comfortably live on a planet like this, assuming it had a good atmosphere and was not mana-toxic.
Re:LGM planets? (Score:2)
With the use of any forseeable technology for finding planets we will probably see something vaguely resembling a Gaussian distribution, but the low end is not because of a lack of smaller bodies, it is because the technology doesn't detect those smaller bodies.
Just to name the more extravagant theories .. (Score:2)
To be less extravagant, it could be just 14x the size of jupiter with a lot of companion moons one of which might be the size of jupiter :-)
Re:Heres another mindfuck (Score:2)
you can get from the standard equations of electricity an magnetism a equation for an 'electromagnetic wave' that travels at a fixed speed. (maxwells equations)
notice that this equation is true whatever speed you are traveling at etc, make a conceptual leap and realise that these 'light rays' define a metric on space. i.e. that space isnt cartesian/euclidian but the that the only sensible definition of a straight line is the path which light would take between two points.(thank einstien for this baby).
Realise that the 'distance' between two places is the length of the path light takes. Realise that therefore anywere that light cannot get is not any distance away, as there is no such path (you can view this as infinate distance if you want, but its truely outside the remit of the distance function).
realise that there is therefore nothing meaningful (in the sense of distance or matter or time, i.e. space) outside of the places were light can reach from the universe.
realise that as a space-time object the universe is bounded by the fact that after n years from the big bang it can be at most a 'sphere' of radius n light years.
now as light speeds heads outward from the center of the universe
- it keeps going for ever- infinate universe
-it slows down, but never quite reaches zero speed, it also never quite makes it past a certain distance away from the center- open finite universe, is finite, the is, as I said earlier --nothing-- outside it, it is a black hole.
--it slows bown, stops and 'falls' back towards the center- closed finite universe.
this last one includes the sphere-like possibility, the easiest way to think of this is that a satalite does this and reached a circular orbit. It may or my not collapse.
Now on a personal level i think the big bang theory is right(ish) I thing we live 'metauniverse' that periodically collapses., i think that its essentially the donut like, with the 'centre' of the universe being a black hole (i.e. the gap in the donut). (NB this is a 4-d donut (torus) im talking about)[it may actually be the surface of a 5-d donut im talking about, i cant do these thing in my head].
btw, thats not even a patch on how fucked up it really is.
disclaimer:I only really know some maths, In my opinion most of this is true, regardless of the actually physics involved, I may well be wrong.
The Speed of Gravity (Score:3)
What is the speed of gravity?
Perhaps someone with more background in physics could answer this one for me. If all mass is always exerting a force on all other mass, if mass is destroyed (via nuclear reactions or whatever) how long does it take for the change in force that was once being exerted by the object that was destroyed to stop acting on other masses? Is this instant?
These scientists used ultra-sensative gravity measurement tools to discover these planets, could something similar not eventually be used for instantaneous communication accross the universe?
Re:Heres another mindfuck (Score:2)
I realise that i was playing fast and loose, and mixing relativistic newtonian and big bang type theories, but I still defend a lot of what I said.
1) when I say matter i mean matter/energy, i realise this isnt clear. I also say places that light cant get to not places wihtout matter. My point is that something (a point of space time) is in our universe if and only if there exists a light path between it and us. My real point is that the universe can be closed, bounded and still not inside anything.
2)a metric topology IS either closed and bounded OR open and bounded OR infinate (assuming it reasonably homogenous and smooth), the light rays coming from the 'center' are from the interior, aproaching what would be the boundary if the object that is the universe were embeded in a euclidean space of one dimesion higher (this obviously assumes it is such that you can do this, if not he idea still has some conceptual validity)
Now to be a real pedant you should really be thinking of a 4 dimesional static space with time represented by a metric along the 'time axis'. My understanding was that this shape is bound by the light cone, I realise this may be wrong.
My objective was to provide a neater conceptual framework, I admit it breaks at all sort of levels, so does cosmology, that half of my point really
Its like dismissing the
btw like i said i only really know the maths.
Re:The Speed of Gravity (Score:2)
not sensitive to Earth-type planets (Score:2)
mainly light doppler shift, can only see large,
fast bodies- generally larger than a tenth of Jupiter and
an orbit under two months. This has to do with
the amount of doppler shift that can be measured
over a long period of time. Therefore, we are
going to see the strange stuff first: large and
fast and probably out of equillibrium.
Future space-based methods may have earth-type
sensitivity.
Re:No registration required, be under 13 (Score:3)
A lot of people and companies make bad investments. Often this is because they fail to understand the market. The fact that you expect a return on an investment does not entitle you to such a return.
You've mistaken assumptions - bad assumptions - for rules. The NYT has no moral or legal right to tell me that I must display ads on my screen, any more than they could prevent me from running the dead-trees version through a machine that blacked out the ads it contained.
They could use technical means to try to force the ads on me; I could use more technical means to avoid them. But after a point, the advertisers are going to realize that forcing ads on those who don't want to see them is useless.
No they don't. TANSTAAFL. The consumer pays for advertising-supported services via a higher cost for the advertised goods. In fact, even those who don't use the advertising-supported services pay those prices.
I suppose you want to make it illegal to hit the mute button, or change channels, or go take a piss, during TV commercials? Hey, I've got it: everyone must spend one hour in a "Clockwork Orange" apparatus, being programmed to be good little consumers. That should please your corporate masters.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:The Speed of Gravity (Score:2)
The idea of using gravity waves to communicate has been done before. (For example the Niven story "The Hole Man" where a small relativistic black hole is manipulated to cause gravity waves).
Although no faster than radio, gravity waves have the advantage of passing right through most obstacles.
Re:Frightening? (Score:2)
Ten years ago, we thought we understood the solar system, at least in its general structure of small rocky planets in close, and gas giants further out. Five years ago, Mayor and Queloz found the first exoplanet, and it's been a landslide since then. Marcy and co. have *tons* more planets in their data analysis pipeline, and while I don't know any of the specifics, I bet some of them are at least as surprising if not more so. It's a credit to the whole team that they just pile on more and more observations and only publish once they're really really sure of their data and conclusions. So when we say we know about over 50 extrasolar planets today, we're quite confident in those facts.
And here's the kicker: Not a single one of the solar systems we have discovered looks even remotely like our own.. Either you've got giant planets way close in by the primary, or they're farther out but in highly eccentric orbits which leave no room for the possibility of terrestrial planets, or else now they're ridiculously high mass. The nice organized pattern of our own solar system? Nowhere to be found.
It may very well be that our home is the exception and these supermassive, close in, and highly eccentric gas giant planets are the rule instead. If, ten years from now, after the SIM spacecraft has flown and we've surveyed tens of thousands of stars looking for planets, it may well be that star systems like our own are vanishingly rare. And if that's the case, then the chances of their being other Earths out there, other worlds which we could someday colonize, or on which might evolve other intelligent races, then that becomes much, much less likely. No Tattooines, no Vulcans, no Wunderlands, just lots and lots of Jupiters. And that's what's frightening about all this.
Re:Dyson sphere? (Score:2)
Just a note that the number for its diameter is an absolute and complete guess, albeit an educated one. There's no actual observational data to back that up yet. Basically, if you assume the planet is made out of the same stuff as Jupiter (hydrogen and helium) and that it masses 17 times what Jupiter does, and you plug those numbers into your equations for modeling the size of a planet, then you get an object only slightly different in size than Jupiter, despite the large difference in mass. The reason is that since the planet is composed of gases, it is extremely compressible: As you add more mass, it just gets denser and denser rather than bigger and bigger. This is also the explanation for why Saturn is so close in size to Jupiter while massing only about a third as much - it's very low density. Indeed, a 17 jupiter mass object is expected to be *smaller* than Jupiter, not larger, since it will be so much more dense due to the stronger gravity.
Re:Why is this outlandish and amazing? (Score:2)
My point is that more time is needed to look for hard-to-find systems before we can begin to discuss if current models can reproduce the range of mass distributions observed.
Re:LGM and missed Nobel Prizes. (Score:2)