New Study Shows Solar System Is Uncommon 290
Iddo Genuth writes "Research conducted by a team of North American scientists shows our solar system is special, contrary to the accepted theory that it is an average planetary system. Using computer simulations to follow the development of planets, it was shown that very specific conditions are needed for a proto-stellar disk to evolve into a solar system-like planetary system. The simulations show that in most cases either no planets are created, or planets are formed and then migrate towards the disk center and acquire highly elliptical orbits." The research was published in Science magazine; here's the paper on ArXiv (PDF).
How does study compare with observed results (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I've read here: http://exoplanets.org/aasjune07s/pr_280507.htm [exoplanets.org] there have been some 236 exoplanets detected to date. I believe that they have the ability to see if these exoplanets are in highly eliptical orbits or not - so how does this simulation tie with the observed reality?
The description of Gliese 436 for example seems to also be an exception to this simulation model - so if out of 236 finds we are already finding systems similar to sol - then this simulation model must be at fault or?
Re:Climate Science (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually no we don't have a lot of reasonable data. We have a few hundred point sources from before 1920, and it slowly goes up from there. indeed according to climatologists this past summer should have been warmer than average, yet instead it was cooler. climatologists will need to be right more than 50% of the time if they want me to believe them. Heck just this past weekend the only thing they predicted correctly was the daily highs and lows. They were so far off the mark with wind, clouds and rain that it isn't even funny.
The Farmer almanac predict a cold winter,for most of the USA, while climatologists say it will be warmer than normal. Yet the track record of climatologists is horrible, the farmer's almanac is right about 80% of the time.
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Interesting)
That sort of situation is commonly called "the butterfly effect". As the saying goes, a butterfly flapping its wings over a highway in australia could be the deciding factor as to the path of a hurricane in the gulf three weeks from now.
While that's a little extreme, it's meant to illustrate the point of highly interactive systems that are "extremely sensitive to initial conditions". For example, a single microbe that hitchhiked on Spirit or Opportunity could lead to the terraforming of mars a millennia later.
Weather has always been considered highly sensitive to initial conditions, meaning very subtle differences in the weather conditions today can have a profound effect on the weather a week later. The interesting thing about weather is that it doesn't take a millennia to change things miles away, it can do it in a couple hours.
Incomplete conclusion (Score:5, Interesting)
The article says that for a wide range of parameters protoplanetar disks produce a solar system-like outcome relatively rarely.
The research says nothing about the distribution of parameters in real situations, i.e. is the range of considered parameters realistic?
This is nice research but only preliminary.
Re:Climate Science (Score:3, Interesting)
Growth rate of coral. Wow, talk about drinking the kool-aid. How does anyone know what else might have affected the growth rate of coral at the time? And "sediments"? I know this is difficult for people who want/need to believe in the latest fad, but you can't tell someone what the temperatures were without a measurement of said temperatures with an accurate temperature measurement device installed and calibrated to our modern specifications being used by people of whatever time period you are wondering about.
It never fails that when someone questions a foolish, oft-wrong authority that a response from the crowd of "Defense! Defense!" is heard. It's like the Zero-population gain folks, with their Malthusian scenarios. It doesn't matter how many times they're wrong, someone will try and take a micro-sample somewhere to use for evidence.
We have no reasonably accurate measurement of temperature before the existence of reasonably accurate measurement devices.
"accepted theory" (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, ours is considered typical only because no data existed to show it wasn't. That doesn't make the idea into a 'theory'. Discoveries of extrasolar planets and improved models on more powerful supercomputers are bound to evolve this "Unintelligently Defined Theory" into a better creation story.
;)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Number of Planetary systems we have completely explored - None! - We found a new (dwarf) planet Eris 2,500 kilometres in diameter and 27% more massive than Pluto in 2003
All the other planetary systems we have found have massive sampling bias (we can only detect large planets, and easily detect close orbiting large planets)
All of the systems like ours are undetectable or nearly undetectable at present
It's a black swan problem - Until the 17th century a black swan was a metaphor for something that did not exist ... then Australia was discovered along with Cygnus atratus
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)