Exoplanet Has Showers of Pebbles

mmmscience writes "The newly-discovered exoplanet COROT-7b has an unusual form of precipitation: rocks. Because it orbits so close to its sun, the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot enough for rocks to vaporize — not unlike water evaporating on Earth. And, like Earth, when the vapor cools in the upper atmosphere, it forms clouds and begins to rain. But instead of water, COROT-7b gets a shower of pebbles."

The sky is falling?

[gblackwo]

Neato

Summary inaccurate

[JoshuaZ]

This is a hypothesized event. The evidence for it is slim based primarily on modeling. While this is really cool if correct, one needs to understand that this isn't by any means a slam dunk.

Flintstones

[SirLoadALot]

This is just like on the Flintstones, where everything is made out of stone -- because it's the Stone Age, silly! Further research will reveal the pterodactyl airplanes, I'm sure.

Re:Not unusual

[Thelasko]

We get solid precipitation here on earth all the time.

The parent raises a good point. How do we know the rock comes back down to the surface as a solid? Why doesn't it rain lava?

Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

It was on HBO a while ago! The planet is Crematoria. duhh..!

Re:Summary inaccurate

[Sockatume]

To be fair, the original press release also mangles observed and simulated results like crazy. They've definitely found the exoplanet and determined its orbit and mass. They've either confirmed or hypothesised from simulation that there are no volatile compounds on or around the planet, which they hypothesise is due to bake-out. They've hypothesised based on simulations that it is likely to have a rock-based atmosphere which, depending on composition, could be verified spectroscopically.

Re:Rock Rainbows?

[Gotung]

Not to rain on your rainbow parade, but any planet that close to its star is likely tidally locked.

So no sunset.

cats & dogs.....

[Anonymous Coward]

At what temperature do cats and dogs vaporize ?

Re:Rock Rainbows?

[Jerf]

I would also observe that "molten rock" is not famous for its transparency, let alone "gaseous rock". It may be an "atmosphere", but there won't be anybody observing any sort of "rainbow". The word "atmosphere" may be deceptive in this context; think less "open sky" and more "sea of blindingly hot lava so hot it's gaseous, not that you have any reason to care about this distinction".

Reality Stranger than Fiction

[gpronger]

My first reaction was that this (assuming the theory is correct) is about as cool of a discovery - concept I've read about in a long time. At the same time it brings to point a thought that one of the problems with popular Sci-Fi is that it misses on potential of "stuff" "out-there" (space) being wilder and different (including life) than we've yet to imagine.

If you consider the variety of habitats that we find life in our tiny part of the cosmos (Earth) and that life keeps being discovered in more and bizarre places (by human standards) when you extrapolate that out, I tend to think it may be literally beyond our imagination.

If we, by whatever means, met intelligent life, would we be able to communicate; sure math is universal, but consider the issues communicating ideas and values across cultures when its the same species. Consider a collective consciousness, what does the term "I" or "me" mean to it (them).

Really?

[swanzilla]

FTA:

It is nearly impossible to imagine a deluge of pebbles falling from the sky, or turning on the morning forecast to hear reports of âoerockingâ instead of âoeraining.â

Does this seem difficult to imagine, let alone nearly impossible?
Imagine, if you can, something somewhere else very similar to something standard here!

Titinians say the same thing about Earth

[SloWave]

I'm sure the methane based party animals on Titan also point to Earth and oooh and aaah about how solid H2O actually melts, vaporizes, and falls from the sky as rain, hail, and snow under the tremendous heat we have here.

Re:Let's not exaggerate

[Sockatume]

Actually a 75m section of a 2000m cylinder, from pi * r^2 * depth comes out at about 200 MILLION cubic metres. Multiply that by about two metric tonnes per cubic metre (sandstone) and you get four hundred million metric tonnes. I can't be bothered to account for the curvature of the crater, but I doubt it'll bring that down much under a hundred million tonnes. There's still the "vapourisation versus excavation" question, of course, I'm just pointing out that your estimate of mass is off by three orders of magnitude.

Re:Wow

[jamstar7]

So... the only one of those things that will be a gas at the surface on the far side is oxygen. The article says the atmosphere may not be breathable, but I have to wonder... why not?

Metals poisoning, I'm thinking. When was the last time you tried to breathe some iron?

Re:Not unusual

[dargaud]

It's probably because it passes in front of its sun at every orbit, and we can see the noticeable difference in luminosity. Mercury rarely goes in front of the sun and the luminosity difference is in the epsilon range.

Re:Wow

[Gerzel]

Or ultra fine crystal shards and glass...lots and lots of dust I think would get your lungs long before the metals would poison your lungs.

Why the long face, little bear?

[spun]

To this, let me just add, that low UID trolls are still trolls.

No we aren't. We're "offtopic" which never comes up for metamod, and thus shields the moderator from the presumed risk of modding us down, but does not effect our massive karma. But we don't get treated that way because we're better than you, it's simply because you aren't as good as us.

But I wasn't even trying to "troll," this time. I was trying to make a "joke." "Sorry" to have "offended" you. I just think overuse of "quotation marks" is "hilarious."