Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet 436
SpuriousLogic writes "Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn't exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago.
The planet is known as a 'hot Jupiter,' a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its "year") in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature.
Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit.
The problem is that a planet that close should be consumed by its parent star in less than a million years, say the authors at Keele University in England. The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago."
The Obligatory ... (Score:5, Funny)
...IT'S A TRAP!!!!!
Re:The Obligatory ... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you saying "That's no planet ..."?
According to the IAU...not a planet, right? (Score:2, Funny)
A planet must orbit the Sun.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct, it's an EXOplanet.
Can I get a "woosh"?
Wasp 18b? Sinister much? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wasp 18b? Sinister much? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Multipass.
If you think the PLANET is tough (Score:2)
You should meet the aliens living on it.
They're tougher than Chuck Norris (and that was supposed to be impossible too).
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Chuck Norris is a native of the planet, our yellow sun saps his powers.
Re:If you think the PLANET is tough (Score:4, Informative)
Scientists calculated the weather conditions on a similar "hot Jupiter", HD 189733b, and came up with some pretty amazing results. HD 189733b is locked into synchronous orbit around its parent star in the same manner that the moon orbits the Earth, in that the rotational period directly matches the orbital period (which is fairly common for close orbiting planets, it is very plausible that Wasp 18b could be a similar story), leaving one side of the planet perpetually day, the other perpetually night. As the planet is only 3 million miles from its parent star, it was not overly surprising to find daytime highs of 2,000 - 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. What was surprising, however, was the nighttime temperature of roughly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit! This indicates that the atmosphere is incredibly efficient at transferring heat, which means a lot of "air" (NOTE: The atmosphere of HD 189733b is NOT air, but a completely alien mixture of gasses.) moving around. When they calculated the winds that would be necessary to sustain such heat transfer, it was determined that HD 189733b would need to sustain windspeeds of approximately 7,000 mph, making Hurricane Katrina look like a nice ocean breeze by comparison. The weather conditions on Wasp 18b are likely similar; any beings that lived there would indeed have to be extremely tough, and Chuck Norris would most likely be checking his closet for them before going to bed.
Disaster Area (Score:5, Funny)
If it exists, it isn't impossible (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it was thrown from a different solar system and captured by its star.
or (Score:5, Insightful)
perhaps it's spiraling to its demise after billions of years in a decaying orbit.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To "young"-earth creationists, what we see here is certainly not "impossible," or improbable. In fact, it is to be expected!
That planet is "impossible" because their "science" is impossible.
Orbital dynamics "settled" science for 400 years? The age of the universe (ballpark figure) had been settled for a lot longer than that until modern, naturalist scientists decided to unsettle it. Look who's doing the backpedaling now... (Not saying they'll return to Genesis for answers; they'll just devise even more
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The clients didn't pay the Magratheans their bill on time.
I saw this episode of Doctor Who (Score:3, Informative)
The Beast is imprisoned there!
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, where's the black hole?
Maybe it is in a decaying orbit (Score:2, Insightful)
And it started out a billion years ago much further away...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And we just happened to look at it during that 0.1% of its lifespan...
Which is possible of course, and more likely than that percentage since our observation methods find close to the star planets more easily selecting for that case.
Maybe... (Score:2)
Quick Call the Doctor (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Quick Call the Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I thought about your point when the show aired. In fact, it is impossible for that planet to exist. You can't form a long-term stable orbit around a black hole. From a two-body, Newtonian point-mass analysis, yes the planet can exist. However, a planet that close to a black hole will be affected by Einstein's General Relativity, which predicts a collapsing orbit. Additionally, the planet would be experiencing severe gravitational stresses and magnetic stresses, causing it to break up or its orbit to decay. The other matter collapsing into the black hole would disrupt the "stable" orbit, also causing the planet's orbit to decay or it to break up. In short, I don't think that it is possible to have a long-term stable orbit around an black hole when it is consuming matter.
If you want a bigger plot "hole", think about where the magic gravity beam came from. Why would it come from a black hole? If it came from the planet, then why was it pointed in space? If the evil creature could create a gravity beam big enough to save a planet, then why couldn't he make a slightly bigger one and take over the universe? Maybe, we need to accept that any Sci-Fi plot will have its weak points, and suspend our disbelief.
The Satan Pit / Impossible Pit were really great Doctor Who episodes. Maybe we should appreciate them for that, instead of taking apart the physics?
Re:Quick Call the Doctor (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I thought about your point when the show aired. In fact, it is impossible for that planet to exist. You can't form a long-term stable orbit around a black hole. From a two-body, Newtonian point-mass analysis, yes the planet can exist. However, a planet that close to a black hole will be affected by Einstein's General Relativity, which predicts a collapsing orbit. Additionally, the planet would be experiencing severe gravitational stresses and magnetic stresses, causing it to break up or its orbit to decay. The other matter collapsing into the black hole would disrupt the "stable" orbit, also causing the planet's orbit to decay or it to break up. In short, I don't think that it is possible to have a long-term stable orbit around an black hole when it is consuming matter.
Okay, I'll bite. What's the difference between a black hole and any other star, from a reasonable distance? A black hole's just a mass, that within a certain distance of the black hole (the Schwarzschild radius) acts very oddly indeed, but outside that distance, acts like any other large mass. A black hole could have the same mass as the Earth (but be the size of a golf ball) and the moon would still orbit it just fine, wouldn't it? It seems to me the main problem the planet would have is that a black hole would be, well, black, so the planet would be as cold as Pluto.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nature paper (Score:5, Interesting)
So if the orbit is decaying, we'll be able to measure it in 10 years, otherwise there will be useful data to refine theories about tidal forces in the surfaces of stars.
Wow, a crappy slashdot title (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how in the article, they never use the word "impossible". Infact, they actually put forward a handful of possible (although unlikely)ways that this may have occurred.
There's bazillions of things that are unlikely to happen, but the universe is a big place. While we can't predict which particular weird thing we might observe next time, we shouldn't be all that surprised that weirdness is out there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
we shouldn't be all that surprised that weirdness is out there.
We're not. What we are doing, is being misled by.. journalistic license
In this case, a subtle "impossible" (that was never in the source) was added. Maybe it wasn't conscious, but as you can see from the comments, it's the exact very thing that most people are focusing on. I call that clever (but largely.. poor) reporting.
I'm reticent to post this, but hey, I believe there is a fundamental problem with the way the media reports science, I wrote this a few weeks ago [richjones.com], after another slashdot article.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, we should be surprised if we catch a one-in-a-billion event after a mere 370 observations.
Does no one take statistics and survey sampling anymore? I'm not a statistician, but even I understand why that is wrong. We should not be surprised when we detect a one-in-a-billion event after only 370 observations. We should be surprised if, on average, we have detected a one-in-a-billion event far more frequently than expected (that is, we conducted one trillion observations and detected significantly more than 100 such occurrences), assuming our sample technique doesn't skew the probability of dete
Maybe it was a "normal" planet... (Score:5, Interesting)
...formed one billion years ago, but originally much more distant from the star. But its orbit was not stable, approaching quickly (in astronomical time) to the star; and we're just lucky to have found it in the final stage of the death spiral. If this is the case, it may even be possible to watch the final spectacle in a timeframe reasonable for human scale (a few thousand years, perhaps centuries, or even less).
Wild speculation of course... but just to be safe, I'm immediately canceling all my plans of space vacations near the Wasp18 system. I never liked wasps anyway.
I'd agree (Score:2)
There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy. If we look at enough of them then at some point by the laws of probability we're going to find a planet on its final death spiral into the star. I don't see what the issue is. Ok , if in 50 years time the planets orbit hasn't changed *then* we start to worry and revisit our theories.
Hot Jupiter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hot Jupiter (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This is modded funny, but this was exactly my thought. I presume this was considered, and that there is a reason to have ruled it out, but there are already binary stars which sound like two identically sized stars orbiting each other, but are not always identically sized. Since scientists think that really large gas giants are just stars that weren't big enough to initiate fusion, it doesn't seem to much of a stretch to think that the "hot jupiter" is just a case of a binary star where one never made it
I Broke The Laws of Physics!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
alternatively (Score:5, Interesting)
we're actually watching the planet in the process of being consumed
which would be highly unlikely, to get that timing right, as there's a window of only a couple thousand years in which we could see that happen, but maybe that's what we're really seeing
in which case, rather than revise orbital dynamics, this planet could contribute to our understanding of astrophysics/ michael bay style thermodynamics by allowing us to watch a jupiter sized planet ripped to smithereens in real time
We have filed the plans (Score:2)
Aliens (Score:2)
I'm going with the "a bunch of fraternity aliens pulling a practical joke" theory.
To be serious, hasn't science had a history of finding "impossible" things, then turned out to be 1) a mistake 2) something new that changed some thinking 3) a weird-ass anomaly 4) the platypus? Let's all just calm down until we find the platypus alien pranksters!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, except we use slightly different terms. Only the non-scientists need to calm down, though. Finding things you didn't expect is par for the course.
short winters (Score:2)
Did anybody tell ya... (Score:2)
BADA BOOM!
I'll be here all week. Please tip your waiters...
oblig (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia the red star orbits You!
I'm skeptical (Score:3, Interesting)
I once managed a junior programmer who would insist that the compiler had a bug in it when she couldn't get her program to work.
We eventually fired her.
Why do I mention this? Because, as a programmer, when I get results I don't expect, I tend to assume that I have made a mistake somewhere. I don't assume that the underlying theory of how computers work is in error.
Are they even sure that they're looking at a planet? My first assumption would be that they are not seeing what they think they were seeing, rather than there is a flaw in the theory of orbital dynamics.
I'm not being accusatory here, just skeptical.
What are the odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps we've stumbled across this planet during the last million years of its billion year life-cycle. Sounds like a one in a thousand chance that we'd do that. But the summary says that over 370 exo-planets[1] have been found ... so (waves hands as if doing actual math) its about a 1 in 3 chance that one of the planets we've found so far will be in some one in a thousand situation.
Wait until Kepler starts kicking in a few thousand more exo-planets to the database. Then we'll see even more "impossible" situations.
[1] http://exoplanets.org/ [exoplanets.org] says the current tally is just 358
Doctor Who (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe their calculations are wrong...! (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe the way they think to calculate the orbit, size, or even longevity of a planet might be wrong, lending to the assumption that this SHOULD NOT BE. But it is...here is a plain fact...many variables in the universe have yet to be figured out...and many still have room for change. The fact remains, this should not be, so it isn't either they saw wrong or calculated wrong, but which ever it is, we are FAR
from being close to having a good science to judge what is "OUT THERE"!
ps- How about we develop the capability to travel out into space without costing billions each time, and then maybe we can start looking at getting a clue how to calculate distances of planets belonging to another solar system 400 light years away...eyh?
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
This study does demonstrate that either the measurements are wrong or our understanding of orbital dynamics is wrong. Knowing the former is important because it tells us we have to alter how we make the measurements and knowing the latter is important because it tells us we have to alter our understanding of physics. So it's the very antithesis of hubris.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. Maybe something knocked it out of its regular orbit and it's spiraling into the star. Maybe we're just witnessing its death.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Informative)
from TFA:
A second possibility is that the planet hasn't been in its current position very long, Hellier said. Wasp-18b could have spiraled inward to its current position over millions of years. It may have been bumped out of its original orbit by another planet, for example.
"However, that does not solve the problem," Hellier said, because the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did.
hth
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
mmm ... planet. Tasty.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, one in a million chances do crop up nine times out of ten.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. However, scientists get nervous when they see something this unlikely, especially with such a small sample of similar systems to date. Often, such weirdness means something else is going on that we didn't consider, so the nervousness is justifiable in the general case.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but the other question, the one not often asked, how many similarly unlikely occurrences could we see, that we haven't? It may be likely that we see one similarly unlikely event every few dozen planets.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A planet "spiralling into the sun" would be remarkably rare to begin with - it would require a close pass between start systems or somehting equally energetic. This planet has been around at least a billion years, but would die in a million (by current theory), for each case of this remarkable rare event that has happened in the past billion years, there's only a 1 in 1000 chance it would be observable now. We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work. Rare events are possible, but han
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
...there's only a 1 in 1000 chance it would be observable now. We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work.
That's not how it works. Suppose I pick a number between 1 and 1000 at random. Then, suppose I roll a 1000 sided die. Odds are 1 in 1000 that those numbers will match, but that doesn't mean I can't roll the die and match those two numbers with less than 1000 throws. I might match the numbers on the very first throw! It just means I probably shouldn't bet my retirement on matching those numbers on any given throw.
Similarly, if the odds of discovering a planet such as Wasp18b are 1 in 1000, that doesn't mean that, "we've found less than 1000 planets, so we couldn't possibly have found such a planet yet." It just means that if I observe 1000 planets, most likely only one of them will be like Wasp18b. It could be the first one I observe, the 99th, the 1000th or any one in between.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
Or all the planets 1 through 1000.
The point is that the odds of the next being the "one in a thousand" aren't affected by the results of the previous one.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
From math professor in college: flip a coin 50 times. It comes up heads every time. What are the odds (assuming it's a true coin/flip each time) it'll come up heads next flip? 50%.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your statistics are better than your reading comprehension.
The chance of seeing this exceedingly rare event are further reduced 1000 times by its short duration. 370 exoplanets is off by many orders of magnitude from being resonable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"We may have just witnessed an exceedingly rare event" is not science. The Copernican Principle [wikipedia.org] is extremely important to science. You have to assume that we are not in a special place, we are not in a special time. Otherwise every crackpot idea is on an equal footing with solid theory.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly.
The quote I was responding too suggested the event was so unlikely that it makes our current model suspect.
However, if there are 100,000 different things that are likely to be observed in 1 planet in a million, that, if observed significantly more frequently, would damage the model, then we can expect to observe one of these things in about 1 planet in 10.
Suddenly, observing one in the first 10 planets doesn't seem like such a model killer.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't study/analyze it and
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct. By way of illustration, consider the following. In a bridge game I, as the dealer, distribute the cards resulting in an assemblage of four distinct hands. What is the probability of any single deal producing that particular constellation of hands? The rigorous answer is 1 in 52!/(13!)^4 = 1/53,644,737,765,488,792,8
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It really depends on how small is small. If you happen to find a 1 in 10,000 birth defect, that's one thing. If you happen to find a baby born with telekinesis, that is something else. So rare it's never been seen, and it's not understood.
I haven't RTFA sorry to say, but if all they're saying is this would be a rare event, then blah. You would expect to find one of those now and then. But it sounds like the scientists are saying they don't even understand how this event is possible. Which is what I was
The explanation is obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Informative)
This story appeared in USA Today [usatoday.com] yesterday. From the article:
Putting aside the sensationalist journalism (calling it a "suicidal planet"), it appears that its proximity to its star is causing plasma tides on the star (similar to the tides we have here on Earth due to the Moon), and those tides are warping the planets orbit.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
What probably happened is something more like this:
An astrophysicist and a journalist sit at a bar after a long day's work looking through telescopes/making shit up.
Journalist: Anything interesting happen today?
Astrophysicist: Actually, yes. We discovered a planet orbiting around another star.
Journalist: Another one? I said interesting, not yet another stupid gas-ball orbiting around another star...that's page H12 at best.
Astrophysicist: Well, the funny thing is, this star is orbiting closer to its star than it ought to be able to...so it's kind of weird.
Journalist: (rolling eyes) So what?
Astrophysicist: The orbit its in should be unstable...it should eventually fall into the star and burn up.
Journalist: Okay, so we have some planet that might be about to burn up...okay, we're probably page 5C with that one.
Astrophysicist: Sure, that's probably what will happen. Of course, if the orbit its in is somehow stable, which is impossible, that would mean 400 years of understanding in orbital dynamics is wrong...(chuckles)...but of course that's ridiculous.
Journalist: 400 years of physics wrong? Impossible planet? I smell a Pulitzer! To the presses!
Astrophysicist: Hey, wait! Come back! That's not what I said...Oh well, at least I can use his article in my next grant application.
Aaaaaand...scene!
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Funny)
Fox News Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Will Obama's nazi socialist policies tax the good citizens of Wasp-18b until they commit suicide by diving into their sun? Find out at 8pm on The Factor!
MSNBC Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Will Dick Cheney come back to power and invade it on false pretenses? Find out at 8pm on Countdown!
CNN Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Watch our exciting report wherein we will use cutting edge technology to display an image of this planet above a floating pie chart!
Tabloid Journalist: Loch Ness Monster seen again! Read the shocking new evidence that proves she hails from Wasp-18b!
Slashdot Editor: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
Different Slashdot Editor a week later: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Funny)
Al Gore: This proves that global warming exists, and is caused by man!
Internet Journalist: Al Gore claims that he invented Wasp-18b.
GW Crowd: Al Gore, the inventor of the internet, claims that man created Wasp-18b.
Slashdot: Al Gore crates the innernet.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Funny)
A DROPDOWN BOX IS A VERY VERY STUPID MECHANISM FOR MODERATION.
Unfortunately not all browsers reliably support the Hot Branding Iron control ...
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Interesting)
Note to Slashdot admins: A DROPDOWN BOX IS A VERY VERY STUPID MECHANISM FOR MODERATION. That is all.
Yea! Why isn't it command-line based like other good user interfaces?
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Funny)
password: **********
modding.... [35%]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the third option - the orbit it has now isn't the original orbit. Plenty possibilities here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or the third option - the orbit it has now isn't the original orbit.
That's pretty much a given, with that orbit.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe that's one fucking badass planet. The lesson to be learned here is do not fuck with Wasp-18b.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or maybe that's one fucking badass planet. The lesson to be learned here is do not fuck with Wasp-18b.
Unless you're Chuch Norris.
Wait....
Maybe Chuck Norris is an alien from planet Wasp-18b!
Of course!
That would explain everything!!!
"Orbital dynamics" never in doubt; poor article (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the orbital dynamics discovered(?) by Johannes Kepler (or Newton) was never in doubt regardless of what the article says. That's because what they're really talking about here is the rate of drag caused by the star the planet is orbiting; this needless to say was never conceived of let alone formulated 400 years ago. Without these stellar winds coming from the star, the planet would keep orbiting just fine forever (unless the star was a really dense object in which case general relativity would c
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
That would fall under "our understanding of orbital dynamics is wrong".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which solar system is this Venus in? The one I know is odd, but it still rotates. It just takes longer to rotate on its axis than it does to orbit the sun.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think physicists need to visit a planet to be able to make reliable measurements about them?
I'm not saying that, exactly; I'm saying that when we measure things, we have greater confidence in them when we have multiple ways of measuring, and they all agree.
Visiting and making more direct observations would be such a way; I can't really think of any others, since I'm not actually a scientist.
But it seems to me that if we had multiple independent confirmations of the observation, using different me
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with the general sentiment, but there is an important caveat. One single measurement on a reliable apparatus is worth any number of dubious measurements on dodgy equipment. My point (which I didn't make very well) is that the distance to the target is not necessarily a factor in judging the reliability of the results. I am a professional physicist, I trust their result, but I also am pretty sure (I would say 'believe', but I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression that my 'beliefs' are not
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am not sure of the method they used to find this planet. If they are using the transit method, then there isn't a heck of a lot of interpretation to the numbers. You see how often the sun "blinks" because of the planet flashing across it. You get several observations, with a minimum of three (this is a reason why the closer planets get discovered quicker. it takes less time to verify). So, basically I don't think it is presumptuous at all. It is basic physics.
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:5, Informative)
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
The error bars are published along with the data, you know. There's no presumption here. These astronomers are presenting data and then interpreting the results in order to suggest probably implications.
Why is it that every "scientists find something new and try to understand it" article on Slashdot prompts comments that get modded up (why is the parent +4 insightful?!) for complaining that arrogant scientists are making stuff up and leaping to conclusions?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is it that every "scientists find something new and try to understand it" article on Slashdot prompts comments that get modded up (why is the parent +4 insightful?!) for complaining that arrogant scientists are making stuff up and leaping to conclusions?
Probably because the average slashdotter doesn't know anything about science. Scientific facts, maybe, but procedure? No. See any global warming thread for further details.
It goes hand in hand with conspiracy theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is driven by the desire for validation through possession of "secret knowledge."
Therefore, NASA faked the moon landing, auto makers have suppressed the 200mpg carburetor, and scientists are all glory seeker publishing dubious results that they make up as they go along. /. has a large tin foil hat contingency, so this should come as no great shock.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He had it right: in case of large tinfoil hat, Slashdot is prepared.
Re: (Score:2)
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
Why do we need to go to a planet to take measurements? By your logic, we should not be able to confidently say anything about any of the celestial bodies save the Earth and our moon. All the astronomers (not physicists, mind you) are doing here is determining (not presuming) the orbital period of a planet around a star, which is EXTREMELY straightforward, even for an exoplanet such as this. It is also fairly straightforward to the age of a star. Since all of our current knowledge shows that planets tend t
Re:Maybe the measurements are wrong or incomplete (Score:4, Insightful)
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm... that's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you mean "presumptuous"? This is how science works: based on past observations, you construct a theory of how things should work. Then you make new observations that contradict your theory, and you revise it. That's what we're seeing here.
I'm impressed by the speed at which the WASP team makes these "impossible" discoveries, though. A few days ago there was news about WASP-17b that orbited around its sun in the wrong direction, and now WASP-18b orbits too close to its sun. Cool stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe what they are seeing is the Fleet of Worlds. Instead of one planet, there are eight of them, which means that they are actually orbiting on an 8 day schedule instead of 1. That would place them much farther out from the sun.
Or else it is protected by a simple warp field.
Re:This just in (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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I like to call this "the evolution of science" - tends to confuse the hell out of creationists.
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Re:Is it re-up time for grants already? (Score:5, Funny)
> Queue the 'Killer meteor will come within 100 miles of earth!' too as the
> scientists ramp up their efforts to get funding.
Them getting funding for things like LINEAR is, of course, really silly
compared to:
"Oh look, honey, a shooting star! Quick...let's make a wish!"
"Wow, honey, that IS a beautiful shooting star!"
"I can still see it...you too, right?"
"That shooting star is...farking BIG!"
"Is it just me or is this gettin' creepy?"
"Now I can hear it too :-/"
WHOOOOOOSH........KABOOM!!!!!
[insert earth tremors, tidal waves and general catastrophe here]
Captured planet? (Score:3, Informative)
There could be other explanations. . . maybe the planet wasn't originally part of that star system, but was a rogue planet that got 'captured' when it got too close to that star, relatively recently?