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).
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Ever since mothers were allowed into academia, all their research has been telling us is that we are SPECIAL.
Cheers!
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't read it like that
Space is still the big unknown. If this "shows' anything, it seems more probable that this 'shows' that the simulations aren't complete enough yet.
If they would deduce this from actual statistical data, it would show something, but deducing this from simulation seems a a bit to trustful to the current state of science if you ask me
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Basing conclusions off simulation models is risky, mainly considered how in the domain of planetary simulations, well established models get entirely questioned every once in a while.
And at this point even actual statistical data is hard to use to conclude anything about our solar system, because of our limited observation capabilities, what we know has a heavy statistical bias.
Climate Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Informative)
It's an interesting parallel with anything where you base a conclusion off a simulation. But with climate science there are very significant differences.
With our own planet we have reasonable records of how conditions changed in the past and the results of that. We've got extremely detailed recording of the current situation and the recent past. We've got firmly established science showing why those changes would cause those results. The world's climate is a little chaotic and the simulations match that state of affairs.
When modelling planetary discs, we're nowhere near as sure of the physics. We can only get decent observations of our own solar system, and there isn't a disc of dust to observe. Even the best telescopes can barely see the discs of dust around stars. We could barely detect our own solar system around another star, let alone watch it form.
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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
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Insightful)
And you'll need to stop confusing climatologists with meteorologists.
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Funny)
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.
And you'll need to stop confusing climatologists with meteorologists.
What does a meteor have to do with this weekends weather?
Leave science to the scientologists I say..
(They're the authentically named 'ologists for the job).
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And you'll need to stop confusing climatologists with meteorologists.
I'be always wondered, why do they call them meteorologists when they don't study meteors? Do they call people who study asteroids and comets "weatherologists"?
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Informative)
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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
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Informative)
Growth rate of coral is one data point. You can also look at ice cores, tree rings, stalactites, isotope analysis of rocks. And sediments can refer to all kinds of interesting information, both organic and inorganic in nature.
You might be able to cast doubt on coral growth rings, but when everything is pointing in the same direction, you've got to pay attention to the most obvious reason for that.
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Which will not give you anything resembling exact temperatures. Which you would actually need to plot "data" points.
Re:Climate Science (Score:5, Informative)
How does anyone know what else might have affected the growth rate of coral at the time?
For one, they look at corals of the same species from around the world which grow in regions of different temperature, salinity, etc., and see how those factors are affect the coral's growth.
The other poster has a more complete answer to the broader question.
but you can't tell someone what the temperatures were without a measurement of said temperatures with an accurate temperature measurement device
That's manifestly false. Oxygen isotope proxies in ice cores are one of the prime examples of good paleothermometers, when they can be used; they depend on the rate at which heavier isotopes are transported in warmer or colder air, which is just physics. You don't need to worry about biological fractionation and such. Other proxies do good or fair jobs, depending on the type and the circumstances. Ocean proxies often do better than land proxies, since conditions are more stable. Almost all proxies are better at measuring temperature changes than absolute temperatures, though.
We have no reasonably accurate measurement of temperature before the existence of reasonably accurate measurement devices.
I'm sure you came to that conclusion from a thorough reading and analysis of the paleoproxy climate literature.
Mod parent up, not a troll (Score:3, Informative)
And that comment is a troll because you don't agree with it?
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It's like the Zero-population gain folks, with their Malthusian scenarios.
You do realize that population growth will have to hit zero at some point, don't you? It doesn't matter whether growth is exponential or linear. Positive growth for infinite time is not possible.
The question is only whether population growth goes to zero in a controlled manner, or goes very negative in an uncontrolled manner.
Do you remember people talking about high food prices earlier this year? Do you remember people talking about high old prices? There is no food crisis. There is no oil crisis
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I'm not a climatologist, or even a statistician, but I would have thought that just collating more and more "probably correct" data points doesn't necessarily make them more accurate, especially when you're plugging them into a simulation...
When those data points come from multiple sources and all point in the same direction, I'm inclined to believe the overall trend that they show. The other explanations are that the whole thing is a big coincidence, or a big conspiracy on behalf of all the worlds climate scientists. Occam's razor suggests that these cases are not true.
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Sigh. Why does people still insist on thinking global "warming" means it gets warmer?
No we have no conclusive fact that humans are the ones causing _climate change_ but the climate change is very real.
Travel around Europe and all will tell you same, weather isn't as it used to be.
It might be that we have no chance of changing the course - perhaps the sun is getting warmer and we can do squat about that - but what if taking the bike/public transport, turning off your equipment instead of standby did make a d
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Sigh. Why does people still insist on thinking global "warming" means it gets warmer?
It's because of the word "warming" I think. Some people are still clinging to the outdated notion that it means "to raise in temperature". I blame dictionaries.
Travel around Europe and all will tell you same, weather isn't as it used to be.
Just like language, it would seem. But you are right, England isn't wine producing country like it used to be, and Greenland hasn't yet regained the viable farming production it once had. Patience, Splab, all in good time.
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Whilst I see the comparison there are some major differences. We have climate records going back thousands of years and more (ice samples, tree rings, fossilized plant growth, crystal growth, geological formations etc.) and the ability to perform direct observation on the climate.
Other solar systems however are an almost complete unknown. We have no past data to validate anything against and we have only recently started indirectly detecting the existance of extra-solar planets through very complex means.
I
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.
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I don't know what data sources you're talking about, but that doesn't appear to be the case for the climate models I'm familiar with. You need a pretty large change in radiative forcing to significantly alter the simulation output, at least on the large scales that such models are typically used for (global and continental multidecadal trends). Alternatively, you can monkey around with the feedbacks, which is why the models have climate sensitivities which range over maybe 2-4 degrees. But to get a feedb
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I disagree. Simulation is a good method to check your basics and verify patterns. Like all things, it's a tool that you need to know how to use and what to use it for. Only in very well understood fields do simulations give you good numbers to work with. But even in poorly understood fields, then are a way to check your theories, by letting them "run" and see if the results coincide with the expectations and/or actual observations.
So if, for example, you have a theory about how planets are formed, and put i
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
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Add to that a lot of speculation about planetary formation and who can have any degree of certainty about where our solar system sits in the scheme of things.
We need to observe many more planetary systems before we have a clue.
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Just because we're a 'one in a million' or even 'one in a billion' doesn't mean that we're unique, especially as there are so many stars out there.
Still, it does give us poor prosepects for colonizing other stars in the future. At least until we become independant of planets.
Heck, that leads into my theory why Earth wasn't colonized by intelligent life in the past - travel times are so long that by the time an alien race can make the journey, they're purely space bound, other than their home system. They
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If this "shows' anything, it seems more probable that this 'shows' that the simulations aren't complete enough yet.
Of course. They did not even mention Great A'Tuin, so how could their model be complete?
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I wouldn't read into the article title so negatively "uncommon" when talking about stars is a pretty big number.
Also if you read the linked PDF with the paper, the graph shows what kind of numbers they are talking about, about 6 out of 100 simulations resulted in solar system like configurations.
M
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You mean like this [slowdays.org]? Or...?
What did you just call Asimov? (Score:2)
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, our solar system was special. In it, humans were the only sentient life forms in the galaxy. It had a "scientist" (who only did book research) discussing the "owigin question" of where humanity started ("...some say sol, oah Alpha Centuri...").
In (IIRC, it's been a while since I read the books) Foundation's edge the story had Earth, where humanity started, a radioactive wasteland, and it was revealed that having two gas giants in the center orbits and our giant moon were
What is rare? (Score:5, Insightful)
If even one thousandth of one percent of stars form solar systems similar to this one, that would still be quite significant.
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Drop and farming seems to indicate some sort of reference to a MMORPG, but as I haven't ever played any (only MSORPGs), could someone explain it.
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1/1000th of 0.01%
I think that statistic is a bit hopeful. My current understanding of how the "earth" came to be a hospitable place, is due to a cosmic collision on such a scale that it changed the entire ecosystem of earth. The impact was so massive that it made the event that caused the dino's to be wiped out to look like a pin prick.
I'm sure cosmic collisions of that size occur all the time (speaking astronomically), but what are the chances that "large objects" (earth sized), at the right distance from
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You say tomatoe, I say tomatoe, you say unusual, I say inevitable.
I hear God did it. That's what they're teaching the kids in school these days, right?
Honestly, who gives a shit what these people have to say? They're so far removed from credibility, they may as well be quoting Nostradamus.
Re:What is rare? (Score:4, Funny)
This is assuming the "E.T." is made of meat, like us, which I feel is a common mistake we make when thinking of what could exist elsewhere.
I blame Star Trek.
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I blame Star Trek.
The tendency was around long before Star Trek was filmed; indeed, lots of classic sci-fi has 'aliens' so human we can cross breed. Of course, there's also good examples of true alien life.
Still, if we assume physics remain the same in other systems, we've discovered a lot of special attributes to carbon.
To reduce things a LOT, I'll consider three possabilities for life:
1: Rocky planet borne - we know it can happen, we're around
2: Gas Giant borne - the question becomes one of - can life fo
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Terry Bisson wrote a short story [baetzler.de] called They're made out of Meat that I found amusing.
Someone at slashdot pointed me to it once. It is about your very premise.
ok. (Score:2, Insightful)
Under which model? (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true (Score:2)
The article linked to also seems to have been written with Creationist bias, because it suggests our solar system is "unique". The authors don't claim that, and if they did it would be junk, not science.
Re:Under which model? (Score:5, Funny)
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I have to ask: Under which solar formation model was this conclusion drawn?
No idea, but I'm at least sure there's a selection bias on who gets headlines with models leading to spectacular conclusions == publicity and more research money. I really doubt this hunk of rock is really that special, yes we have a large gas giant in a distant orbit, yes we are in the right orbit, yes we have a magnetic field and yes we have a satellite, surely not many planets have that but... there's also a farking great universe out there. Maybe our closest neighbors aren't habitable, but if we could h
special. (Score:2, Insightful)
The question isn't whether it is special, but HOW special. And TFS failed to even give a fake number to calm us data freaks down.
Exactly! (Score:2)
The question isn't whether it is special, but HOW special.
Exactly. What's the probability of forming a "solar system like" planetary system ? 1:10? 1:1000? 1:1000000? 1:1000000000? The first two would still give us "lots" of hits inside our galaxy, while still being "uncommon".
Dangit, get some more planet-finding telescopes out there, on the double! We need data to back up the hypothesis.
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if our solar system is uncommon... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:if our solar system is uncommon... (Score:5, Funny)
Lets say... zero.
If you cam't find a girl on Earth, what are your chances against alien supermen? particularly someone who is built like Gort?
In a bar fight, you can only win at ASDF keyboard battles.
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Lets say... zero.
Nonsense! All you need is an Infinite Improbability Drive [wikipedia.org] and you'll find lots of planets like that.
In a bar fight, you can only win at ASDF keyboard battles
I think Arthur proved you wrong when he got in that fight with Thor. "Want to step outside?"
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If you think thats rare.. (Score:5, Funny)
Just what are the odds that every alien encounter will be with bipeds that have vocal communication!
Re:If you think thats rare.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you think thats rare.. genitals (Score:2)
But do you want an alien biting off your genitals just to say hello: "what do you mean you can't regrow genitals at will, uh sorry!"
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...and speak english no less.
Dupe from 3 weeks ago (Score:5, Informative)
Solar Systems Like Ours Are Likely To Be Rare [slashdot.org]
KentuckyFC writes
"Astronomers have discovered some 250 planetary systems beyond our own, many of them with curious properties. In particular, our theories of planet formation are challenged by 'hot Jupiters,' gas giants that orbit close to their parent stars. Current thinking is that gas giants can only form far away from stars because gas and dust simply gets blown away from the inner regions. Now astronomers have used computer simulations of the way planetary systems form to understand what is going on (abstract [arxiv.org]). It looks as if gas giants often form a long way from stars and then migrate inwards. That has implications for us: a migrating gas giant sweeps away all in its path, including rocky planets in the habitable zone. And that means that solar systems like ours are likely to be rare [arxivblog.com]."
Let's define "common" (Score:3, Funny)
Modelling has indicated that the solar-system isn't as common as previously thought. Scientists estimate that only 2^2340987890 similar solar systems exist in the local group.
Special one (Score:5, Insightful)
Research conducted by a team of North American scientist shows our solar system is special
... therefore, God created this solar system specially for man, which is the center of the Universe.
I love this based-on-new-studies "science".
Just because we can't see (yet) any other kinds of solar systems, doesn't necessarily mean ours is "special" !
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You seem to have some sort of bias. Nowhere in the paper, or even the article, is there any mention of GodDidIt.
The paper doesn't use the word "special" anywhere, though the article does. However, "special" itself doesn't mean goddidit either. One of the dictionary definitions of "special" is "distinguished or different from what is ordinary or usual" which pretty much means the same thing as "uncommon".
Yes, there are those people that would use the idea that our solar system is uncommon as "proof" that god
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Actually, because of current findings, our solar system is quite special.
When we find other similar solar/planetary systems, ours will lose the special status.
Sort of like if you have a "special" child in a classroom. Once this child is removed from regular school and placed into a "special" school where all kids are "special", he is no longer "special".
P.S. What a way to get mod points
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Another scientific fact: Absence of evidence is not equal to evidence of absence. Especially when we haven't even been looking for evidence yet.
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Yes, but they share the common ground in that neither is a sound foundation for a positive assertion.
"Unique" is a bad word for many people in reference to Earth and its system, but its currently just as likely we are unique as we aren't. We keep hearing about how common Sol-like systems "must" be because of the sheer number of stars in the Universe, but we have yet to find even one. So, that assertion is far from obvious.
The
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?
Is it just me, or does this change every 2 months, (Score:3, Insightful)
... currently?
It's just "educated guessing", nothing more.
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.
"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.
;)
They may be uncommon... (Score:4, Funny)
Given the limits of our technology... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the limits of our technology to detect extrasolar planets, how are "they" able to make this conclusion, especially when it is based on simulation? We are able to detect Jupiter-sized planets right now, yes? How about we wait for some better technology that can detect Earth-sized planets more accurately before we go rushing to the idea that we are "special". While the that idea intrigues me, it would certainly make the galaxy a more boring place.
Not that special really (Score:2, Insightful)
They performed 100 simulations and got a result compatible with our solar system. If only 1% of solar systems ended up similar to ours with planets, there would still be tremendous number of similar solar systems out there. I don't think this is anything to be worried about.
political correctness, please! (Score:5, Funny)
the hot season (Score:2)
I can just imagine the groans of intelligent life on the elliptical orbit: "Oh boy, here comes the HOT season again!"
the study is biased (Score:2)
the only real data we have on planet development to use in a simulation comes from our planets.
therefore, we can't know about other solar systems until we visit them.
I'm sure that in the trillions of star systems out there, ours is special. It's special to us. However, I think it's quite common.
Very poor summarization and implied conclusions (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary != TFA. Surprise!
"Due to the complexity of the developing system, which includes the disk-planet and planet-planet interactions described, the simulations resulted in random systems. Nevertheless, two dominant cases were detected.
In a disk with low mass and high viscosity, the gas in the disk is removed before a planet can form, resulting in a system that has only rocky, icy bodies. At the other end, in a disk with high mass and low viscosity, planets are formed but are pulled towards the center of the system and acquire highly elliptical orbits around the star.
In the intermediate case, planets form but undergo only modest migration towards the star and their orbits don't become as elliptical. This seems to be the case of the solar system. The simulation showed that this case is realized in a small number of systems, meaning the solar system does not resemble most planetary systems. "
The report is saying that along a spectrum of possibilities, there are a number which produce results different than our system.
1) It says nothing about the real life DISTRIBUTION of these alternatives. If only a narrow band of X values produce the results you want, this isn't necessarily a problem if you're in the high point of a steep bell curve. Look at a H-R diagram - there are clearly 'sweet spots' in stellar development across the range of possibilities. Nothing says planetary development is any different.
2) This of course means little. There is no evidence either way to suggest that life (which is the point of looking for solar systems - I don't think we just have some weird fetish for similar solar systems) can or can't develop on those alternate results. Hell, we may find that solar systems with nearly circular orbits are rare but that's good because they produce the Galaxy's retarded civilizations, and everyone ELSE out there is laughing/pitying us.
FWIW run your own particle/gravity simulation, and find the same results yourself: http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes [spore.com]. It's awesome, and finally a use for that uber-mega-cpu you just bought.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Have you every programmed a gravity sim? (Score:5, Informative)
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It occurs to me that we might just have been lucky in that a monster planet formed in a circular orbit. Any mass in the Solar System going onto a highly eccentric orbit would then have ended up inside Jupiter.
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Have you actually tried running your simulation for (simulated) four billion years? Don't you think that over a long period of time the various objects would act on one another to even their orbits out? That's the way I understood our current setup arose.
You mean accidentally reaching a circular orbit again after the orbit had already become elliptical? I think that'd be extremely unlikely. When various objects act on one another (as they invariably do), they're most likely to become more elliptical, not less.
Re:Have you every programmed a gravity sim? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try modelling tidal effects in your simulation. These tend to drive orbits towards the circular over time.
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Citation please? Or explanation? Something other than claim asserted by appeal to your personal beliefs?
How about the fact that a circle is a very special kind of ellipse? For every circle with a specific radius (or orbital speed), there's an infinite number of non-circular ellipses with the same average radius (or orbital speed).
So once you throw randomness into the mix (like gravitational interaction between multiple bodies), you're infinitely more likely to end up with a non-circular orbit than with a circular one.
I'm afraid I have no citations for you, nor am I a mathematician, but with a bit of luck, one
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For example, the earth and the moon. The moon at one point had a certain rotational speed (on its own axis) and another speed for its orbit around the earth. The two are now exactly (AFAIK, or very close) the same.
I believe your argument, if applied, would say that the chances of the day-length
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You do know that axial tilt is the main cause of the seasons on Earth rather than the eccentricity of its orbit?
Grumpy.
God, can people on slashdot ever see the forest for the trees? i mean, this whole board is filled with tree counters and tree branch counters and not a one of you can actually ever see the forest!
sigh.
don't you think, if the earth's orbit carried it out past mars, that maybe, just maybe, the orbit would take precedence over the tilt of the earth when determining "seasons"? That the axial
Re:Have you every programmed a gravity sim? (Score:5, Funny)
Did you now that the Earth does in fact have an elliptical orbit, and that in January it is actually three million miles closer than it is in July?
Did you also know that the primary reason there is solid carbon dioxide on Mars is the density of the atmosphere, and not the distance to the sun?
Did you also know that if your mommy was any uglier, or your daddy wasn't drunk, you wouldn't exist? It's true! The existence of life is contingent on many factors.
And besides, Charley's in the trees, man, he's in the freakin' trees!
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Did you now that the Earth does in fact have an elliptical orbit, and that in January it is actually three million miles closer than it is in July?
To put it in context, the average is 149.6 million km, the min is 147.1, the max is 152.0. Or an orbital difference of 3.3% between min and max. Pretty close to a true circle, I think.
Did you also know that the primary reason there is solid carbon dioxide on Mars is the density of the atmosphere, and not the distance to the sun?
I call bull on this one. Pressure can lead to precipitation of gasses, but the atmosphere of Mars is very, very thin. .7-.9 kPa, while the Earth at sealevel is 101 kPa. Carbon dioxide freezes at -78, while Mars reaches lows of -87. So yes, CO2 freezes on mars, much like water freezes on earth.
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You didn't supply links, here you go.
Did you also know that the primary reason there is solid carbon dioxide [uncyclopedia.org] on Mars [uncyclopedia.org] is the density of the atmosphere, and not the distance to the sun? [uncyclopedia.org]
Did you also know that if your mommy [uncyclopedia.org] was any uglier, or your daddy [uncyclopedia.org] wasn't drunk, [uncyclopedia.org] you wouldn't exist? [uncyclopedia.org] It's true! [uncyclopedia.org] The existence of life [uncyclopedia.org] is contingent on many factors.
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I would assume that once traveling 5 lightyears is feasible, so would be 50 or 500 lightyears.
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Nah, Jump-1 is 3.26 lightyears and there's no way to go over Jump-6, even with TL-15 technology, so "50 or 500 lightyears" is right out.
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Of course finding one close to our planet could be bit harder then expected before.
I would assume that once traveling 5 lightyears is feasible, so would be 50 or 500 lightyears.
That depends a lot on what you consider feasible. At 0.1c, a 5 ly journey can be completed within a human lifetime. With 50 or 500 ly that won't work. And while communication with a 10-year lag is annoying, it's not as bad as a lag of several generations.
If we ever invent warpdrive that uses negligible fuel, 500 ly might be a breeze, but in general, orders of magnitude do matter.
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But the spaceship would still need to be virtually self-sufficient, and also be able to cope with changes of the crew due to, um, human activities (e.g. dying, procreation, etc). It'd have to be a generation ship, and having it travel farther would mostly mean either more stops for picking up fuel and other raw materials, or loading it with more of the same before it is launched.
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It'd have to be a generation ship, and having it travel farther would mostly mean either more stops for picking up fuel and other raw materials, or loading it with more of the same before it is launched.
True, but the crew that arrives won't be the crew that left, and that might make a huge difference. Or not. We can't be sure because nothing like that has ever been done before, but I think increasing the number of generations the journey lasts will increase a lot of uncertainties.
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Our galaxy is 100,000 light-years in diameter. The nearest galaxy of any size is over 2.5 million light-years away.
Heck, the distance to the next arm of our own galaxy is 6,500 light-years.
There aren't very many stars within 500 light-years of earth...
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well luckily the universe is big enough that we dont really need it to be a very common occurrence
We don't need anything at all in this respect. It's clear that at least one solar system among many billions of billions is suitable for life, and that's all we need.
But it is interesting to find if there might be other life out there somewhere, and if our kind of solar system is extremely rare, it's a lot less likely that we'll ever discover other life, even if it does exist.
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i wish i had points for you. :(
Yes, well said. If there is a 1/1,000,000,000,000 chance of life forming around any given star, there should be metric fucktons of life supporting stars in our unfashionable western spiral arm alone.
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Luckily? I'd say we're lucky it isn't a common occurrance! It's also lucky that you can't go faster than the speed of light and that stars are so far away from each other.
Look what happened to the natives when Europeans discovered Australia and the Americas. What do you think will happen if an alien species smart enough to travel between the stars discovers us?
If we do in fact have the only solar system un the galaxy capable of creating/sustaining life, THAT would be lucky. Running across an intelligence th