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13 Free-Floating Extrasolar Planets Discovered
Maestrogenic writes: "Researchers from the UK have discovered (using a new camera on the UK Infrared Telescope) 13 extrasolar planets, free-floating in the Orion Nebula. None of them are smaller than eight Jupiter masses though. This pretty much proves that vagabond planets are a common thing, and brings the total [number of] extrasolar planets discovered to above 40. Here's the official press release. " Note: the jpeg image linked to on this page is a beautiful shot, and downloads quite quickly.
So are these 13 just wandering around muttering "I coulda been a star!"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
According to the article in the current Scientific American, deuterium fusion only lasts a few million years. It takes a very long time for the brown dwarf to cool off from radiative cooling.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
no planets have been found under 8 Jupiter masses. It may indicate that there is a limit to how small these free-floating planets can be
Or more likely, it may indicate that smaller planets have already cooled off to the point where they're not easily picked up by this survey. If the planets all formed about the same time (not unreasonable, if they're in the same cloud), smaller ones would be a lot cooler than larger ones for two reasons: they never got as hot in the first place (less infalling mass means less conversion of gravitational potential energy), and they cool off faster due to their greater surface area to volume ratio (square/cube law).
-- Alastair
...suppose one of them entered out system? i suppose it would be captured and begin orbiting our sun...
No, it would be very unlikely that our solar system could capture one of these, and absolutely the Sun couldn't do it alone (Jupiter or some other planet would have to help).
It's like the very long, elliptical orbit of comets. What keeps them from being captured into nice, circular orbits near the Sun? It has to do with momentum. Something falling into our solar system from a great distance builds up a lot of speed as the Sun's gravity tugs on it. By the time it reaches the inner solar system, it's got so much momentum that it swings around and shoots back out to where it came from.
Yes, a rogue planet falling into our solar system could do some damage. But that damage would be in the form of perturbing the orbits of some of the planets/moons/asteroids/comets in our solar family. The odds of collision are astoundingly small.
Lithium is also one of the (many) ways we know the Orion Nebula is young. The smallest of the Orion Nebula stars are too young to have started fusion, so many still have lithium. However, all of them more massive than brown dwarfs will eventually start fusion and the lithium will vanish (in a hundred million years or so).
What basically happens is that the data comes in off the telescope, and when ORAC-DR sees it, the data gets reduced. It automagically removes any sorts of defects that are common to CCD observations (flat-fields, bias levels, sky levels), and often produces publication-quality results. We were joking that astronomers wouldn't even have to write their papers. We'd just reduce the data, fill in some fields on a paper template, then ship the paper off to the appropriate journal.
Yes - you could make an Astronomer version of Lorem Ipsum tied into the LyX. I'm sure half the referees would pass it, and the other half would take it as a direct assault on their chosen field of expertize :-) Just joking folks!
Having done three nights of observing on UKIRT doing IR spectroscopy, having the automated reduction facility makes life a lot easier. Alas in our case it told our target object kept falling out of the slit, something later (i.e. after we left) found to be a problem with the telescope. Now fixed, but I don't think I'll get another chance at those observations. But such is life - and you really can't complain when you have to travel to Hawaii to do your observing :-)
And by the way, I'm glad to hear that Frossie's jeep is still in one piece - it was brand spanking new when I was there, and it was great fun bounding over the lava fields in it! Hiya to Tim too - long time no see - thanks for the accommodation!
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
here is the link to the story he mentioned. It really is a great article for us amature star gazers.
so we have these huge things floating around... suppose one of them entered out system? i suppose it would be captured and begin orbiting our sun also, but think of the damage it would do before settling down (if it ever would).
perhaps the next great "comet" movie should be about a free floating planet or star :)
.sigs are dumb!
Regarding these new discoveries, it will be important to make sure that the discovered objects are actually members of the Orion GMC, and not more distant objects. Spectroscopic measurements will help to do this. The fate of stars/brown dwarfs/giant planets is determined primarily by their mass:
If Mass > 75 jupiters then Hydrogen fusion: Star
If 13 > Mass > 75 jupiters then Deuterium fusion: brown dwarf.
If Mass less than 13 jupiters then no fusion: planet.
At least that's one way to define the terms. The very informative Sci. Am. article mentioned above can be found here If you want to Create your own brown dwarfs, and see what their spectra look like, try this site. -chris
I think that the press and the public will *never* be interested in science, unless: a) there is money to be made b) it has a direct benefit for mankind The problem with science and new discoveries lies in the fact that you never know beforehand what will come of it; you can compare this with research & development work in the IT world. At least 50 to 75% of the work will never see the daylight in terms of new software; but if you don't try, nothing ever changes. I think the only thing that can be done is to make ends meet, and try to work with the available budget (if any); I really wouldn't know how to get the public's attention. Maybe make space the new and exciting location for a new gameshow? ;)
I've seen really brief treatements in a couple of places in science fiction, but the most interesting one is the discussion with the chaplain on the chip in Pournelle & Niven's "The Mote in God's Eye."
In general, extraterrestrial life poses absolutely no threat to Christianity. The interesting questions come from whether other races our in need of redemption, like ours, or are in some other state.
ANd then if they are in need of redemption, would our Paschal Sacrifice, be sufficient, or would they need their own Christ?
Unfortunately, that discussion really didn't carry through the rest of the book.
Hmm, another interesting one is Lester Del Rey's . . . awe, nuts; I forget the title . . . Anyway, Christian Fantasy is fairly well represented, but this is the only novel of Christian Science Fiction I've ever seen. I recall another short story by someone travelling from world to world, getting closer and closer to Christ's life, death, and ressurection, but never quite making it. Anyway, in Del Rey's story, the first 50 pages are really slow, but the aliens find a dead and bombed out church, a crucifix, and Bible. They slowly translate it, and get caught up.
*argh* What's that title?
hawk
What basically happens is that the data comes in off the telescope, and when ORAC-DR sees it, the data gets reduced. It automagically removes any sorts of defects that are common to CCD observations (flat-fields, bias levels, sky levels), and often produces publication-quality results. We were joking that astronomers wouldn't even have to write their papers. We'd just reduce the data, fill in some fields on a paper template, then ship the paper off to the appropriate journal. *heh* When I left there was some talk of dedicating a Linux box to the data reduction (instead of the Solaris box they had then).
And it's a Perl-friendly environment at the Joint Astronomy Centre (the place that runs UKIRT in Hawaii). My supervisor (Frossie Economou) has written articles for The Perl Journal, she's got a stuffed penguin on her desk, and the license plate for her Jeep? "PERL5". Another software guy (Tim Jenness) has written stuff for Perldl and is altogether cool for Perl (and stereo equipment too...).
ORAC-DR information is found here. Props to Frossie, Tim, and Chad (who wrote the Apache modules that give the look-and-feel to the JAC webpages -- look for it on CPAN).
X-ray and gamma-ray emitting sources (high-energy sources) of radiation are usually signs of something very extremal going on: black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, pulsars. Now, a new family of such objects has been found -- the full article is in today's "Nature". What are they? Read the article, I'm not much of an astronomer :-)
Regards,
January
Vagabond planets--
if enough collide, do they
alight with fusion?