The Blistering Hot Exoplanet Where It Snows 68
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the blame-the-space-alien-groundhogs dept.
from the blame-the-space-alien-groundhogs dept.
cylonlover writes "Today's weather on HD 189733b: It will be hazy with high wispy clouds. The wind will be steady from the east at speeds approaching 6,000 miles per hour (9,656 km/h). Daytime temperatures will average a balmy 800C (1,472F), while the equatorial hot spot at 30 degrees longitude is expected to top 900C (1,652F). But, there is a high chance of silicate snow showers, with accumulations expected except in the vicinity of the hot spot. Just how much can astronomical observations tell us about exoplanets — those worlds orbiting other stars in our galaxy? With patience and cunning, more than you might think."
Weather forecasters (Score:5, Funny)
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Weather men can't predict much better than a coin flip on this planet. Suddenly I should believe a prediction on a distant planet?
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Re:Weather forecasters (Score:4, Interesting)
Does being Welsh make you arrive 63 years late at 99.99% the speed of light?
Re:Weather forecasters (Score:5, Funny)
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Great. Only too late do I wish I had mod points.
You'd not want to start much earlier.
Yes, factoring in the shut-ins at pubs. Been there in Wales (Raglan, to be precise), great fun until shamefully late hours.
Ah, the memories...
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You'd not want to start much earlier.
Well, with a wait of 63 years, that takes a lot of self-control...
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Not sure whether Welsh are late, but being from Wight helps to make you early:
There once was a man from Wight
Who could travel much faster than light
He set off one day
In a relative way
And returned home the previous night.
My favorite non-licentious limerick!
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I thought the weather quite dry. I'm from Seattle.
What to name it? (Score:2)
And I, for one, would just like to say: "Welcome, new a galaxy!!"
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Re:I welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I welcome (Score:4, Insightful)
Well sure, if we could actually observe the weather on this planet and confirm or refine our speculations, that would be great. Unfortunately, the technology to do so is well beyond our means at this point. By the time we actually are able to directly observe this planet, our weather models will probably be much more refined as well.
I'm reminded of the planet discovered over a year ago that was tidally locked to its star, which created a habitable zone circling the planet where the light from the star would hit it at an oblong angle, creating a zone of essentially perpetual twilight where life could form. We had quite a few ideas already for what the environment on this planet must be like, until further measurements of the star system revealed that the "planet" was really just minor errors in the calculations of the star's wobble, and there wasn't even a planet there to begin with.
This article isn't "just knowledge for knowledge's sake." Indeed, it seems to be purely speculation for speculation's sake. I'm actually very concerned by the line in the summary, "With patience and cunning, more than you might think," because that really implies we know a lot more about what we're talking about than we actually do. I'll just be happy when the weather forecaster on TV can accurately tell me the weather for the next week.
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What, this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_g [wikipedia.org]
All sorts of data and predictions, mixed in with a large dose of "it's probably not there"...
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No, he WENT to a different party, the last one only had a keg and hookers, this one has nitrous oxide and hermaphroditic geminids.
There are no parties,there is a party that pretends it is two by having cosmetic differences to fool the suckers.
Repubmocrats have ruled us nearly unopposed for more than a century.
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Of course knowledge for knowledge sake is enough. Who knows when "useless" knowledge becomes useful. When computers first appeared lot of theory on discrete compuations and methods had been developped, decades, and in some cases centuries, before it became practical. This then was only "knowledge for knowledge's sake". Then the electronic computers made it so much more useful. But without that background work, it might not even have been practical to develop computers without anything to use them with. Whi
It's all speculation until you go there (Score:4, Interesting)
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the Canals nonesense was explained by the astronomer who observed them actually seeing the blood vessels in his own eyes.
Re:It's all speculation until you go there (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's all speculation until you go there (Score:5, Informative)
He called them 'canali' which is Italian for channels [google.com]; a word that does not carry the same anthropomorphic baggage as canals.
Thank heaven it didn't get mistranslated into cannoli - we'd have a line of Paula Dean wannabees lines up for launch.
Re:It's all speculation until you go there (Score:5, Insightful)
We actually run weather and climate models for Mars, now. Currently we've run models on Mars, Titan and Venus, based on Earth weather models. Its a good check on whether the models are right: physics is physics, and bar changing some specific details (water -> methane, CO2 condenses out on Mars, etc) if the model doesn't work on Mars, somethings wrong with the model.
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Yeah, but it doesn't work on Earth either.
Although there is truth behind what you say you have the reasoning wrong. Models on other planets allow us more than one point of data for atmospheric study, and do thus allow for better understandings.
It's not about testing the model, it's about trying to make it work at all.
But if its a gas giant, where... (Score:2)
.... does the silicate come from? Will it have migrated all the way from the (presumably) rocky core through thousands of miles of gas or is it formed by some sort of reaction in the atmosphere?
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On such a planet, silicate IS perhaps the gas (in a similar way that our atmosphere consists partially of water vapor)?
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Hopefully it's not the silicon analog to methane - silane [wikipedia.org]. Here on Earth it's toxic and pyrophoric (self-igniting) in air. Nasty business. Imagine opening a valve on a silane tank and getting a '30 FOOT TONGUE OF LETHAL FLAME!' [homage to a jet dragster commercial from my youth].
Speculation and hypothesis (Score:1)
...Not to put this work down at all. It is important and difficult and it is amazing how far we've come. But our ability to observe is limited so a lot of this is by necessity speculation and hypothesis. The planets in our own solar system - much nearer - still offer suprrises when we visit them. To think that we can know with any real certainty what exoplanets are like from the limited data our current tech gathers is foolish to say the least.
Better name for planet (Score:1)
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>> Daytime temperatures will average a balmy 800C
Or at least Hot.
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But it only feels like 780C with the wind chill.
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AGW again! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:9,656 km/h (Score:5, Funny)
This is a prime example of over-applying significant digits in your math.
Don't let this happen to you. Millions of nitpicks are made each year when significance arithmetic is misused and overused. They need your help.
Please use significant digits responsibly. Thank you.
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Damn shame you didn't go for the ironic and say '8,675,309 nitpicks are made each year...'
Orbitting an "exosun"? (Score:3)
Planet. It's a planet. Flash Gordon didn't rock the spandex on "exoplanets". Captain Kirk didn't put the beat-down on that Gorn on an "exoearth".
They're just planets. The context makes it all clear, and "exo" is just meaningless marketeer blurb. Please stop it.
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Planet. It's a planet. Flash Gordon didn't rock the spandex on "exoplanets". Captain Kirk didn't put the beat-down on that Gorn on an "exoearth".
They've tried to stop it, but have made a compromise... The term was shortened from: Extra-Terrestrial Planets.
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Extra-Terrestrial means not Earth.
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Exosolar planet means not around our star. Our sun's name is Sol.
Exostellar would mean an unbounded free-floating planetary-mass body but that has other issues since the current definition of a plant involves it sweeping it's orbit clear of other bodies which a free-floating mass can not really do but it is still workable.
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Flash Gordon and Star Trek were fiction. We knew of no exoplanets in the 1930s and 1960s. The name wasn't thought up by marketers, it was coined by astronomers.
Likewise, the SF guys all call our star the "sun" while Alpha Proxima is simply a "star". Solar planets are unique in that they circle not a star, but the sun -- even though the sun is a star.
It's a lot more logical than planets vs dwarf planets.
i think this would put a damper (Score:2)
on captain kirk's love life
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He'd be smokin hot for at least a second or two until he vaporized.
...And? (Score:1)
Oh I know the answer to this one.. (Score:1)
It's Mars, right?
Silica haze: aka dust (Score:2)
As anyone who has lived in the desert can tell you, silica haze is pretty common when the wind blows. When it settles, we don't call it snow. We call it dust.
Significant digits! PLEASE! (Score:2)
What is this 9656, 1472, 1652 bullshit? COME ON. [youtube.com]
Why not:
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This really makes me CRAZY. "Lady found a three foot alligator (0.9144 m) in her bathtub!" What the fuck is wrong with one meter in this case???
Somebody get some significant digits up in this! (Score:2)
Daytime temperatures will average a balmy 800C (1,472F)
Because 800C is of course precise to the degree...try 1500F instead.
Raining sand (Score:1)
high chance of silicate snow showers
Does this mean that it's basically raining sand?
I don't get it (Score:1)