Astronomers Find Planets Around Weird Binary Star 69
The Bad Astronomer writes "Exoplanets orbiting binary stars have been discovered before, but NN Serpentis is a weird system even in that category. One star is a red dwarf in an incredibly tight orbit around a white dwarf. The white dwarf used to be a star like the Sun but became a red giant as it died, engulfing the red dwarf. Now the two orbit each other almost as closely as the Moon orbits the Earth. Explaining how the two newly detected exoplanets survived such an event is very difficult, and astronomers think they may have actually formed from the material expelled by the star as it died."
Re:The view must be nice (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cue The Carbon-Based Life (Score:3, Informative)
Can always check for life on neutron stars [wikipedia.org].
Re:Cue The Carbon-Based Life (Score:3, Informative)
ahh "ants! Natures secret power" Youtube has a 6 minute version rather than the 2 minute version the parent linked. It's also much better quality.
As for why we think of ants this way is that while they are "highly ordered" they have none of the things we regard as "intelligence" markers; memory, sense of time, art, etc.
Re:Cue The Carbon-Based Life (Score:1, Informative)
Searching for that yields a 6 part documentary that is absolutely fascinating! A worthy presentation to be sure.