Smitty825 writes: "The LA Times is reporting that scientists have discovered planets that have no sustaining stars. They are still pretty big (like 5-15 times Jupiter's size), but they are still too small to be considered Brown Dwarfs! Read the full story here." There's also a story in space.com.
A few notes on Pluto, MACHOs, Dark Matter, etc.
by
ccg
·
· Score: 3
A few people here are arguing that these new planets don't fit the definition of planets. However, the definition can change. In fact, there is an ongoing debate whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet. Pluto is actually just a large lump of the Kuiper Belt, an icy belt of material extending from Pluto's orbit out to about 500AU. It is similar to the Oort Cloud, except that the Oort Cloud is distributed spherically.
Furthermore, Pluto has a moon, Charon, like many other planets in our solar system. Unlike the others, Pluto is the only one that is so small relative to its own moon that their orbital barycenter is above the planet's surface. When any two objects orbit each other, the smaller one does not orbit the exact center of the larger one. There is a single point between the two, called the barycenter, around which they both orbit. The greater the difference in mass, the closer the barycenter gets to the center of the more massive object. Incidentally, this is why massive planets can cause a detectable wobble in their host star, which is one way we can detect extrasolar planets.
Also, this planetary discovery sounds similar to the Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs) proposed to explain dark matter. However, last I heard, the best estimates for the possible amount of MACHO mass still only accounted for a small percentage of the missing mass (the dark matter). I believe there is a search underway to detect MACHOs with gravitational lensing. Although the discovery of "local" planets without stars may provide legitimacy to the idea of MACHOs, it doesn't explain the missing matter. The missing matter is outside the visible disk of the galaxy, or at least at its edge, if I remember correctly. Adding more mass to the interior of the disk won't explain the high rotation rates at the edge. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
ccg
(the history graduate who wishes he were an astronomer)
math isn't a "thing" that can be wrong. It's a representation of abstract concepts like number, and while these founding assumptions can be wrong, math itself is internally consistent and correct just as an abstract systm on its own. We can put digits in the wrong place, but we can't be "wrong" about the existence of digits. There is no such real thing as a digit. It's a concept we created, and defined it's parameters ourselves. It could indeed turn out that our math is a poor way to DESCRIBE what goes on in the universe, but's an entirely different problem.
Christ, I'm tired of this...
by
dbarclay10
·
· Score: 3
I hate it when people say, "Oh, there can't be life on these because...." or, "life can't for in an environment that hostile..." Really pisses me off. What the hell do you guys/gals know? Damn-near nothing, that's what. You have experienced a smallish percentage of ONE world. So, what was the weather like on Jupiter yesterday? What, you don't know?
Listen, guys. Here, on *this* planet, is life that can thrive on Jupiter. Yeah, that's right, it exists already. They're hidden in sealed-off caves beneath the ocean floor. There's microbes in the Antarctic.
The people who say life isn't likely to exist on these planets because of the extreme environment are probably the same people who think we're killing the Earth with pollution. We're friggin' *gnats* compared to the Earth. We try our hardest to destroy the Earth - and I mean bend *all* of our global effort towards it - and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference a million years from now. And according to our best knowledge, a million years is the blink of an eye. At *best* we'd be a tiny high/low point on a graph, and you'd need a magnifying glass to see the damage we did.
So, to sum up:
a) We don't know a damned thing about these planets, and we have absolutely *NO* idea whether or not life exists on them.
b) Life here on Earth, in our own backyard, can stand extremes like you wouldn't believe. Pressures that makes diamonds out of coal, cold that comes close to absolute zero(coldest known temperature is something like -200C, which is only 72/73 degrees above absolute zero), heat that would melt anything humans have ever produced are nothing to life.
c) Okay, offtopic, but I'm on a roll;) We can't destroy the Earth. At this point in time, the worst we could do wouldn't make a dent in the scheme of things, Earth-scale.
Dave 'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
--
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Better Headline
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4
I'm posting anonymously because I hate when people whine about their submissions being rejected, but I sent this story in a couple of days ago with a *much* better headline:
Scientists Find Planet Sized Balls
Life would probably not form, because a planet that is not directly affected by a star will not have an enivronment volatile and random enough for the random particles to collect and form self-replicating molecules.
The lack of tectonic activity mentioned in another post would mean that the core of the planet would not stay hot enough for life forms resembling those at the bottom of our oceans to survive for long.
However, if life did form, we might not recognize it for what it is. Sadly, by the time we get there, the planet would probably be a dark, dormant, and extremely boring rock, if it still existed.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Slashdot Mirror
A few people here are arguing that these new planets don't fit the definition of planets. However, the definition can change. In fact, there is an ongoing debate whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet. Pluto is actually just a large lump of the Kuiper Belt, an icy belt of material extending from Pluto's orbit out to about 500AU. It is similar to the Oort Cloud, except that the Oort Cloud is distributed spherically.
Furthermore, Pluto has a moon, Charon, like many other planets in our solar system. Unlike the others, Pluto is the only one that is so small relative to its own moon that their orbital barycenter is above the planet's surface. When any two objects orbit each other, the smaller one does not orbit the exact center of the larger one. There is a single point between the two, called the barycenter, around which they both orbit. The greater the difference in mass, the closer the barycenter gets to the center of the more massive object. Incidentally, this is why massive planets can cause a detectable wobble in their host star, which is one way we can detect extrasolar planets.
Also, this planetary discovery sounds similar to the Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs) proposed to explain dark matter. However, last I heard, the best estimates for the possible amount of MACHO mass still only accounted for a small percentage of the missing mass (the dark matter). I believe there is a search underway to detect MACHOs with gravitational lensing. Although the discovery of "local" planets without stars may provide legitimacy to the idea of MACHOs, it doesn't explain the missing matter. The missing matter is outside the visible disk of the galaxy, or at least at its edge, if I remember correctly. Adding more mass to the interior of the disk won't explain the high rotation rates at the edge. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
ccg
(the history graduate who wishes he were an astronomer)
it's a Death Star!
math isn't a "thing" that can be wrong. It's a representation of abstract concepts like number, and while these founding assumptions can be wrong, math itself is internally consistent and correct just as an abstract systm on its own. We can put digits in the wrong place, but we can't be "wrong" about the existence of digits. There is no such real thing as a digit. It's a concept we created, and defined it's parameters ourselves. It could indeed turn out that our math is a poor way to DESCRIBE what goes on in the universe, but's an entirely different problem.
I hate it when people say, "Oh, there can't be life on these because ...." or, "life can't for in an environment that hostile ..." Really pisses me off. What the hell do you guys/gals know? Damn-near nothing, that's what. You have experienced a smallish percentage of ONE world. So, what was the weather like on Jupiter yesterday? What, you don't know?
;) We can't destroy the Earth. At this point in time, the worst we could do wouldn't make a dent in the scheme of things, Earth-scale.
Listen, guys. Here, on *this* planet, is life that can thrive on Jupiter. Yeah, that's right, it exists already. They're hidden in sealed-off caves beneath the ocean floor. There's microbes in the Antarctic.
The people who say life isn't likely to exist on these planets because of the extreme environment are probably the same people who think we're killing the Earth with pollution. We're friggin' *gnats* compared to the Earth. We try our hardest to destroy the Earth - and I mean bend *all* of our global effort towards it - and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference a million years from now. And according to our best knowledge, a million years is the blink of an eye. At *best* we'd be a tiny high/low point on a graph, and you'd need a magnifying glass to see the damage we did.
So, to sum up:
a) We don't know a damned thing about these planets, and we have absolutely *NO* idea whether or not life exists on them.
b) Life here on Earth, in our own backyard, can stand extremes like you wouldn't believe. Pressures that makes diamonds out of coal, cold that comes close to absolute zero(coldest known temperature is something like -200C, which is only 72/73 degrees above absolute zero), heat that would melt anything humans have ever produced are nothing to life.
c) Okay, offtopic, but I'm on a roll
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm posting anonymously because I hate when people whine about their submissions being rejected, but I sent this story in a couple of days ago with a *much* better headline: Scientists Find Planet Sized Balls
The lack of tectonic activity mentioned in another post would mean that the core of the planet would not stay hot enough for life forms resembling those at the bottom of our oceans to survive for long.
However, if life did form, we might not recognize it for what it is. Sadly, by the time we get there, the planet would probably be a dark, dormant, and extremely boring rock, if it still existed.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate