Stellar Blast Boils Away Some of a Planet's Atmosphere 34
The Bad Astronomer writes "Using a combination of Hubble and Swift observations, astronomers have apparently witnessed some of a planet's atmosphere being peeled away by a powerful stellar blast. HD 189733b orbits its star just 4 million km from the surface, and a few hours after Swift detected a big X-ray flare from the star, Hubble data revealed a big jump in hydrogen absorption as the planet transited the star. This indicates the planet's atmosphere was blasted off by the flare to the tune of a thousand tons of hydrogen per second. The planet is so hot it probably already loses a substantial amount of air to space all the time, but this spike is the first time a change in an exoplanet's atmosphere has been detected."
Athmosphere or air? (Score:1)
"The planet is so hot it probably already loses a substantial amount of air to space all the time."
What is this "air" they are talking about?
Re:Athmosphere or air? (Score:4, Funny)
I think it's all just hot air.
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4 mil km (Score:5, Funny)
4 million km is roughly 0.02 AU or 1/10th the mean distance of Mercury from the Sun
It someone got that close to me, I'd let them have it too.
Re:4 mil km (Score:4, Funny)
Lots of us are a whole lot closer to you than that.
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Just be smart about it and time your visits to be just after the intake of large amounts of hot pockets. You'll be at less risk for being too near when one of the explosions erupts.
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I look forward to the day we have spacecraft to go to places like this, by trans-light speed (and somehow feed signals back to us) just imagine watching something like this on a big screen.
Re:4 mil km (Score:5, Funny)
I look forward to the day when we have lavish restaurants stationed nearby so that we can watch while we dine.
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Just do what they did in the (iirc) second episode of the rebooted Dr. Who and use gravity satellites to control when it happens and how long it takes.
Re:4 mil km (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if I'd ever be able to afford such a restaurant. Wait, I just found a penny.
Is the atmosphere burning? (Score:2)
...or the last lifeboat of the Splugorthian empire disintegrating in a desperate attempt to evacuate the brave historians who dared to save their Elranythic relics?
I've heard this story before (Score:1)
The next morning the skies are on fire from the solar flare. John fights his way through the chaotic streets of Boston, arriving at his estranged father's home. They embrace as the solar flare burns away the atmosphere and incinerates the surface of the Earth, destroying all life on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film)#Plot [wikipedia.org]
Oh, that is what it was. (Score:1)
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You know that is probably the single greatest benefit of being a Jedi. You could pass the nastiest gas in a crowded elevator (turbo lift, whatever) and just wave your hands and nobody would remember you did it.
It could happen here (Score:5, Informative)
When stars go supernova, they sometimes release large Gamma Ray Bursts which are far more devastating to an atmosphere than X-rays. GRBs can cover great distances too. Currently a star named WR 104 which is 8000 light years from earth seems to be pointing straight at us. If it goes GRB when it explodes, we may be in for trouble. There's enough energy there (even at that insance distance) to cause wide spread extinction on the planet.
Interestingly enough, it may have already happened but the light from it, and/or the GRB, hasn't gotten here yet.
http://www.space.com/5081-real-death-star-strike-earth.html [space.com]
Re:It could happen here (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard theories that one of the Earth's mass extinction events may have been caused by a glancing blow from a GRB. The side facing away from the GRB would be mostly fine in the short term, but the boiling of the oceans on the other side would have much longer term implications for the entire planet.
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Gamma rays at that distance wouldn't boil the oceans and the planet certainly wouldn't stop them either. The danger from gamma ray bursts are to the atmosphere and death on the cellular level due to the destruction of genetic materials.
Re:It could happen here (Score:5, Informative)
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At that distance a few minutes of angle off the axis and it could miss us
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It'll arrive this year on December 21st.
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Yeah, mass extinction events happen all the time. Every hundred million years of so. I better get my gamma ray shelter ready now.
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Just means this one comes pre-nuked-from-orbit so we can move right in.
Douchebag Sun (Score:2)
Planet: "Man I'm hot."
Sun: "Aww sorry. Would you like me to cool you down?"
Planet: "Yes, please!"
Sun: *faaaaart*
Planet: "GAH no you asshole!"
Sun: "Hahahahaha dweeb!"
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Popular version: Genesis 1:31-2:2
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
This, however, is just revisionist history of what really happened, which includes a m