Astronomers Discover Alien World Hotter Than Most Stars (vanderbilt.edu) 59
Science_afficionado writes: An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet like Jupiter zipping around its host star every day and a half, boiling at temperatures hotter than most stars and sporting a giant, glowing gas tail like a comet. From a report via Vanderbilt University: "With a day-side temperature peaking at 4,600 Kelvin (more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit), the newly discovered exoplanet, designated KELT-9b, is hotter than most stars and only 1,200 Kelvin (about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than our own sun. In fact, the ultraviolet radiation from the star it orbits is so brutal that the planet may be literally evaporating away under the intense glare, producing a glowing gas tail. The super-heated planet has other unusual features as well. For instance, it's a gas giant 2.8 times more massive than Jupiter but only half as dense, because the extreme radiation from its host star has caused its atmosphere to puff up like a balloon. Because it is tidally locked to its star -- as the moon is to Earth -- the day side of the planet is perpetually bombarded by stellar radiation and, as a result, it is so hot that molecules such as water, carbon dioxide and methane can't form there." The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
Serendipity, publish or perish (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple enough : we get massive amount of data from scoped research as a side dish, and a trove of nameless PhD who've been told to publish or perish. I say : publish anything remotely interesting.
But c'mon man, can't you find it a least puzzling and a new onlook on space the fact that the frontier between a star, a comet, and a planet becomes that much more hazy ?
Can't you marvel at the idea of giant ball of proto plasma weezing around a sun with a trail behind ?
And that all these findings are due to serend
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It's hot, so chances are if there are any purple alien chicks they're all nekkid.
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You never know what research will find, but because of all that research of no known future application was done, we have a world of computers, medicine, worldwide communication, and a multitude of other wonders.
Re:Simple question (Score:4, Insightful)
Your first issue is that you have conflated science and engineering. Your second issue is that you know little of either. Your ultimate issue is that you think like you write, and your writing is incoherent.
You're also wrong about almost everything you say, but I'm not interested in pig-wrestling today.
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I find it pretty far fetched that this research would lead to us having a new type of semiconductor for example.
But that's a problem with your lack of imagination, not a problem with people trying to advance human understanding of the natural world.
Re:Simple question (Score:5, Funny)
The ad hominem attacks will prove that I'm right and that this finding is utterly useless.
Wait, so every time someone calls you names, that means your arguments become correct? I call your ad hominem and raise you a non sequitur.
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Actually you are just a moron. Sorry to be the one to let you know. If you were qualified to be "skeptical" you would write a rebuttal paper and submit it for review. That goes double for anything involving modeling.
Why don't you cure your skepticism with some facts. [aip.org]
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I mention that people are afraid to question because of looking ignorant and being paired with those in politics. You site an aip page on global warming, which has nothing to do with astronomy or anything I've said. You're the actual moron and doing nothing but proving my point. IF you are capable of doing anything but name calling and misplaced logic, fee free to stop by again. I would love to hear a counter-argument involving the ACTUAL subject at hand, astronomy if you forgot and my two-cents covers a lo
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My apologies for assuming that you were a more specific brand of moron.
Frankly you're not really worth the time to do more than insult you. There's not really an argument to be had about whether or not you see the value in any particular bit of research. There isn't actually any way to value pure knowledge either.
This particular paper does not present new techniques so far as I have read, but analyzing spectroscopic data is a fairly interesting topic on its own. I assume you've read it, of course. Must be o
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I wonder what would happen if you were capable of formulating arguments without insults? Let's go to the Neighborhood of Make Believe (ding ding): "If you were qualified to be "skeptical" you would write a rebuttal paper and submit it for review. That goes double for anything involving modeling. This particular paper does not present new techniques so far as I have read, but analyzing spectroscopic data is a fairly interesting topic on its own. I assume you've read it, of course. More generally, studying ex
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So you read some slashdot story on a scientific topic until you get to a poorly-written rant which promotes "skepticism", which is a dog whistle for various anti-science types. Complaining about the scientific establishment, questioning the value of research and astronomy in general, and talking up "free thinkers" are the hallmarks of the physics crank. This person does not ask what the significance of the research is, they instead write paragraphs about how the useless the research is. This is not a person
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Some people do not have the curiosity level that let's them understand your arguments. They do and/or can not believe in the utility of pure research.
So I'd say you're just pissing against the wind (note for ESL folks: a colloquialism, not an ad-hominem).
sr
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Maybe because its one small step to understanding the universe and our place in it, and without all those potentially useless steps we'd be sitting in our cold caves eating dinosaur sushi. Maybe it will lead to nothing, or maybe our understanding of stars and planets will one day lead to better power sources (fusion/fission) or superconductors or communications or a new series of Survivor. Perhaps you think research works like Civilisation V, where you can view the tech tree and plan which advances you are
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Not me, I'm going to live forev
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AC, I would mod you up if I could. Platforms for healthy skepticism are very rare these days. All you did was ask a simple yet genuine question that should be allowed to remain for intelligent discussion. Unfortunately, 99% of Slashdotters take astronomy to heart, turning it into an almost religion and therefore start throwing stones, only to make those in politics we are all unhappy with right now, look no worse. The truth is, most people here are techies only and actually know very little of the subject t
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AC, I would mod you up if I could. Platforms for healthy skepticism are very rare these days. All you did was ask a simple yet genuine question that should be allowed to remain for intelligent discussion. Unfortunately, 99% of Slashdotters take astronomy to heart, turning it into an almost religion and therefore start throwing stones, only to make those in politics we are all unhappy with right now, look no worse. The truth is, most people here are techies only and actually know very little of the subject they are trying to defend.
In a written only medium its can be very hard to separate a real troll from a sceptic who is just rude. Therefore if someone genuinely wants to ask a question they should probably be careful not to pitch it in a form that looks like a troll. Also don't ask the same question in every single science post.
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Actually, given that it had all the definitions of a troll I would say that the 'good answer' to name calling ratio was pretty good. *shrug*
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The pursuit of knowledge and confirmation and direct application of physical theories is not valuable to you?
Amazing. (Score:5, Funny)
With a day-side temperature peaking at 4,600 Kelvin (more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit)
I think they finally found the homeworld of AMD processors. ;)
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Your joke is old and outdated.
AMD Ryzens run much cooler compared to their Intel counterparts, unless you want to void your warranty and delid your Intel CPU:
http://wccftech.com/intel-core... [wccftech.com]
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It's just a joke. The only x86 chips I've used in the past decade have been AMD chips. I was disappointed when they added an equivalent of the IME and have begun seeking other avenues for processing.
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Your joke is old and outdated.
Not here. My AMD is the only thing keeping me warm in the winter. :)
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With a day-side temperature peaking at 4,600 Kelvin (more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit)
I think they finally found the homeworld of AMD processors. ;)
And here I was thinking that this planet withdrew from the Paris Accord.
So, the largest planet ever discovered? (Score:2, Interesting)
If those numbers are correct and "density" refers to the mean density over the entire planet, then that would make this the largest planet ever discovered at 7.6 times the radius of Jupiter. As far as I can tell the record was HD 100546 b at 6.9 times the size of Jupiter. Odd that the neither the article nor the summary mentions breaking that record. In light of that, I have a suspicion that someone reported the numbers incorrectly and that it's only 1.8 times the mass of Jupiter. Maybe I missed it but I ca
What does this have to do with Sun Microsystems? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If it's tidal locked like our moon... (Score:1)
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I wasn't aware that impact formation was a necessary or a sufficient condition for tidal locking to occur.
Alien World? That the f**k is that? (Score:2)
Seriously /. editor, what the f**k is that? Is "exoplanet" that hard to use? Even the cited link use the correct term.
hotter than the *surface* of the Sun (Score:2)
"is hotter than most stars and only 1,200 Kelvin (about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than our own sun." Well, that all depends on where you take the Sun's temperature, or the temperature of any star. They're all hugely hotter near their core, because that's where the fusion is going on--as in 15 million degrees Celsius (or Kelvin, at that temp the diff between Celsius and Kelvin is negligible) at the Sun's core. (The Sun's corona is also much hotter.) I don't know whether the core of this planet is