NASA's Hubble Telescope Discovers An 'Evaporating' Planet (usatoday.com) 47
Researchers at the University of Geneva Switzerland have used NASA's Hubble telescope to find an exoplanet that's evaporating. The exoplanet, GJ 3470b, shows signs of losing hydrogen in its atmosphere, causing it to shrink. USA Today reports: The study is part of exploration into "hot Neptunes," planets that are the size of Neptune, sit very close to their star, and have atmospheres as hot at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, says NASA. Finding a "hot Neptune" is rare because they sit so close to their star and tend to evaporate more quickly. In the case of GJ 3470b, scientists classify it as a "warmer" Neptune because it sits farther away from its star. The exoplanet discovered by astronauts is losing its atmosphere at a rate 100 times faster than a previous "warmer" Neptune planet discovered a few years before, according to a study published Thursday in the journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics." The planet sits 3.7 million miles from its star. For comparison, Earth is 92.9 million miles from the sun. Researchers say these "hot Neptune" planets shrink in size and morph into "Super Earths," versions of our planet that are massive and more rocky.
Fake gas leak (Score:1)
Global hydrogen loss is Fake News, believe me! CNN runs that #HubbleRustBucket, and it still found NO credible evidence of Orion collusion. They can stick it in their black-hole. Maybe they'll find Hillary's emails in the hole, ya think? The planet's hydrogen is doing the best ever, setting all kinds of records. Make Gas Great Again!
Re: Fake gas leak (Score:2)
Of course itâ(TM)s fake news. An respectable organisation like NASA would never use Fahrenheit.
Fahrenheit degrees (Score:3, Funny)
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The planet sits 3.7 million metric miles from its star. For comparison, Earth is 92.9 million metric miles from the sun.
There. Happy now?
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Much.
What now is remaining and is a bit saddening, is that the USAians need to be reminded that the metric system is what the scientific world uses. Personally in my home, I measure lengths with steps, palmlengths, and fingerwidths, while time is mostly with cycles of the moon and hearststrokes with sunrise as the reference moment. Yet, I am humble enough to not go around and talk to others by using these.
Thank you.
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If only we could invent people who would take raw stories, fact check them, fix grammar and spelling, and correct the units.
We could call them "Slashdot Editors"
If only.
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Re: Fahrenheit degrees (Score:3)
One doesnâ(TM)t rule out the other. Fact is that America lives on its own planet as far as its inhabitants are concerned. That is often annoying for the other Earthlings.
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More like crashing space probes on other planets because someone mixed up the units.
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Can we stop complaining about Imperial units? (Score:2)
Re:Fahrenheit degrees (Score:5, Funny)
USA Today. It's about as scientific a domain as the The Times of London or Der Tagesspiegel.
Your point was? I mean other, than trying to look smarter than you are....
Re: Fahrenheit degrees (Score:3)
That's what the "astronauts" who discovered it said.
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Re: âoe... The exoplanet discovered by astron (Score:4, Insightful)
Total bullshit. The mainstream news has been misreporting science due to incompetence since time was time. Literally every time I read an article about something I understand on a technical level I find that the author has got important details wrong, either because they failed to comprehend them entirely, or because they tried to dumb them down and failed miserably because you can only omit so much before what you are saying becomes outright incorrect.
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you can only omit so much before what you are saying becomes outright incorrect
And on a related subject, from that beacon of wisdom, Barbie: "Math is Tough." [youtube.com]
To be pedantic... (Score:2)
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And how can a gas planet evaporate? Or more specifically Hydrogen gas evaporate? The atmosphere, which is made up of the gas, is escaping.
That Thanos Snap (Score:2)
Miles and Fahrenheit ... (Score:2)
Miles and Fahrenheit ... Wow ...
"The exoplanet discovered by astronauts..." (Score:2)
Seems like the fact that we've sent astronauts to a star 97 light years away would be the bigger headline.
Re: "The exoplanet discovered by astronauts..." (Score:1)
For those that care, the paper. (Score:3)
At https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.051... [arxiv.org]
What is the big interest? Well, mostly that the population of "hot Jupiters" seems to be bimodal (two types of highest frequencies, but intermediate and extreme systems are present). This planet lays near the edge of one of those lower frequency bands, and is losing in the order of 10,000 tonnes/second of hydrogen - which sounds a lot, but over it's 2 billion year lifetime (less than half that of the Earth) only amounts to between 4% and 35% of it's original mass.
If there were other planets in it's system, that's really mess up their orbital stability, if they had any to start with (on the billion-year time scale). On the other hand, that gas takes a time to be driven out of the system, potentially providing a mechanism for "dynamic friction" to damp the instabilities produced.