Tatooine-like Planet Discovered 403
ATP writes "CNN is reporting that a planet has been discovered in a solar system with 3 suns. The observation brings into doubt the theory stating that planets form from the dust orbiting around a single sun. The discovery also resulted in a new method of searching for extrasolar planets-- until now most searching focused only on single-sun systems."
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
No (Score:2, Interesting)
No, it doesn't. That's assuming the star system is as old as the planet. There's no way they can see how the four move relative to each other, so they're just guessing. The two most likely scenarios I can think of are that a star with a planet drifted into a binary system, or three stars and failed star (gas giant) managed--by chance--to drift together without crashing into each other. When they can show me four stars in eliptical orbits in the same plane, then I'll be impressed, but it'll still only suggest a big star had two gas giants big enough to start burning.
Re:Tatooine has 2 suns... (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.google.com/search?q=earth+suns [google.com]
Re:Too convenient (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, the Spitzer space telescope has directly confirmed the existence of already known planets that were discovered using the indirect method. It is possible with the Spitzer telescope rather than Hubble because stars put out much less light in the infrared than in the visible wavelengths.
Re:The effects of 3 suns (Score:3, Interesting)
Appearances aside, not much.
If the planet's environment is life-friendly, then it's only a matter of time before life evolves on it. Lifeforms will then thrive on the resources until a resource limit is met and competition (i.e. "survival of the fitest") kicks in.
Because of the survival benifits that cooperation and intelligence have, some lifeforms will take an evolutionary path towards that... more complex behaviors will likely evolve, eventually leading up to societal-type levels of interactions and intelligence.
Somewhere out there's a mass of stuff wondering what a world with only one sun would be like...
Re:The effects of 3 suns (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to be making the argument that essentially a habitable planet is a habitable planet is a habitable planet. Don't you think, though, that if Earth had three suns, life might have evolved in a vastly different fashion?
I don't know the answer, but it does seem to me that many of the assumptions we take for granted about organic life and its development might not apply on a world with three suns. For example, on a "desert planet" like Tatooine, there may be no aquatic mammals. Assuming current speculation about the evolution of mammals on Earth is true, perhaps on a desert planet large-brained creatures might not ever evolve.
My ignorance in matters of biology outstrips my knowledge of the subject by a wide margin, so I am just poking around curiously to see what others think.
Drake equation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Earth is pretty Tatooine-like... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't see how existing theories are in doubt (Score:3, Interesting)
With 3 bodies, you have no guarantee that there'll ever be a stable node in the field, let alone that enough matter will land there to bunch together.
Pretty neat fluke if it did, mind.
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
Then all of the non-intellectual/non-educated/non-critical thinking/non-analytical/etc. people start jumping on this poorly worded article about how all science is just guessing and doubt, blah blah blah, we don't know anything about our universe, blah blah blah, religion/fantasy/make-believe/folklore/etc. is another answer, blah blah blah. It's utterly pathetic.
If this is indeed a planet that shows scientists that current astrophysical hypothesis/theory may be incomplete, that is all that it is doing, showing scientists that a current hypothesis/theory is incomplete. This will lead to further thinking, understanding, and refinement and a furthering of our understanding of the universe's laws as a whole. That is the entire point of science and the scientific process.
I, for one, am excited to see how this discovery will lead to new understandings and new scientific discovery.
Wonderful, egalitarian, homogenous universe (Score:2, Interesting)
The native creatures aren't usually scared of the aliens. They don't welcome them open-armed either. You can find palatable (and hopefully non-toxic) food everywhere. (Yechch, I am a born vegetarian).
Oh, by the way, I am a big Star Wars fan - I watched the first two releases when I was too young for such observations.
-clueless Nick
Re:Wonderful, egalitarian, homogenous universe (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The effects of 3 suns (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wonderful, egalitarian, homogenous universe (Score:2, Interesting)
Since the Republic had been around for about 10,000 years and presumably some semblance of galactic civilization for at least several thousand before that, it should be no surprise that an Esperanto-like language would eventually come about to facilitate communication.
Re:Wonderful, egalitarian, homogenous universe (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The effects of 3 suns (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily "better", but certainly different.
Many fruit trees will not bloom or produce fruit without a certain number of hours each season below a certain temperature. If I were to dig up the peach tree in my front yard and transplant it to Florida, it would never produce another piece of fruit. (There are, of course, other varieties of peach trees that do just fine in warmer climates.)
So, with no darkness, and no winter, plants would certainly evolve differently, but it's hard to be certain that they'd be better.