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Strange Mini Solar System Found
starexplorer writes "In 1990, Penn State's Alex Wolszczan found the first exoplanets. But he never got much credit from mainstream researchers, because his planets (3
of them, roughly Earth-sized) orbit pulsars and hold no chance for harboring life. Now he's found a 4th object on the outskirts of the system, SPACE.com is reporting. Call it a planet, call it an asteroid, Wolszczan says, but call the setup a dark, eerie twin of the inner half of our solar system. Also in the same story, news of a brown dwarf just 15 times the mass of Jupiter that has a planet-making disk of stuff around it. Together, more problems for astronomers, who still don't have a basic
definition for the word planet or a firm idea of what separates planets from stars."
I think They Might be Giants defined what it was to be a star fairly well.
"The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
a giagantic nuclear furnace..."
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"Call it a planet, call it an asteroid or call it Wolszczan says, but call the setup a dark, eerie twin of the inner half of our solar system." It's Bizarro world, our solar system's dark, eerie twin.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong or over generalizing, but planet vs stars: stars have fusion, planets dont. Hence, a gas giant like jupiter is a planet but a brown dwarf is a star (there is SOME fusion going on, or there was in the past).
Planet vs planetoid is another matter altogether... I'd love to know if theres been a 'real' standard proposed - regardless of whether pluto/charon are planets/moon or not.
How can this professor not be considered mainstream?
He's on the faculty at Penn State! Sounds like he must have ticked off the wrong people at some point in his career. Maybe he needs to hire a PR person.
I would say that finding a planet orbiting any star would be significant news, regardless of whether said planet might harbor life.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
semantics seperates planets from stars from asteroids... Our language, not reality...
Astronomers don't have a planet definition? Here's one! Planets are round, asteroids aren't! How's that ? :)
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Space. Quite a bit of it, I hope.
Oh, you meant what criteria separates planets from stars?
Well, I definitely would much rather live on one than the other. Is that a good definition?
Would a star not be any object that makes light on its own(ie, not reflects it)? IANAA(Astronomer)
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
At the 1990 Astronmy Conference.. And.. we would like to give credit to Mr. Wolz.. uhh.. Mr. Wolzz.. Mr. Wolzczka.. Aww. screw it.
because his planets (3 of them, roughly Earth-sized) orbit pulsars and hold no chance for harboring life.
I wish people wouldn't say things like this. Humans barely have a grasp on what life really is and what conditions it can exist under, especially off our own planet. So how could we make a judgement that life couldn't exist around a pulsar, despite its homo-sapien threatening conditions.
From the article:
In one of the discoveries, an object just one-fifth the size of Pluto was called the smallest planet ever found outside our solar system
If it's one-fifth the size of Pluto, wouldn't that make it the smallest planet ever found anywhere?
Please, "African American little person with a weight problem" is a little more appropriate and a lot less offensive, don't you think? Sheesh.
Go figure.
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At least according to Wikipedia
Scientifically, stars are defined as self-gravitating spheres of plasma in hydrostatic equilibrium, which generate their own energy through the process of nuclear fusion.
Using this simple definition, it seems to apply to most stars out there? Correct me if I'm wrong or if the definition provided isn't accurate enough.
A small gathering of Mini Coopers around a campfire in europe... Or something...
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
A planet:
-is a non-fusor
-has sufficient mass to be roughly spherical due to gravity
-orbits a fusor
-isn't already referred to as any other type of object by convention
-isn't associated through orbital composition or other general characteristics with another general group of non-planet objects (i.e. Vesta, though spherical, is associated with other objects known as asteroids, which are not massive enough to be spherical, and are therefore not planets. Vesta also is not a planet, because of the previous rule. It is by convention known as an asteroid, therefore it's not a planet.)
My source for this definition is myself, and I deem it sufficient for sparking a major discussion, and possibly for other things as well.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
We started out with a limited number of names for things. Planets, stars, the sun. They we found some more things like comets and asteroids.
Now we've found lots of things that come in between, requiring a different form of classification. The only problem is that people are trying to squeeze the definition of things we know about into a limited naming set.
To name something doesn't mean we understand it and being unable to name something doesn't mean we don't understand it.
People should stop worrying and be happy that we can describe these objects to a higher level of detail than can be described using the existing names we had for things floating in space.
Evil people are out to get you.
"who still don't have a basic definition for the word planet or a firm idea of what separates planets from stars."
One is on fire and one isn't.
Now hand over my research grant.
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Well, I am glad to know that our astromomers are idiots. Makes me feel better.
The term "mini solar system" is wrong. Solar -the word- is derived from Sol, the name of that thing we call "the sun" (cue CD7 joke about Sun, long a source of amusement) aka that great big yellow ball thing.
It is Sol. If you didn't know it had a name, blame your teachers.
Our happy family of planets is the Solar System. Because we all belong to Sol. There is one Sol and one Solar System in the entire universe.
This newly discoved system of planets is orbiting ANOTHER STAR which is not named Sol and has nothing to do with Sol. I guess calling it "strange star system" would have invoked too many B-grade actors or something.
Sig for hire.
Definition by example is a good start in most fields of study: The Earth is a planet; the Sun is a star. Just because there are ambiguous boundary cases doesn't mean that these distinctions are only in language, "not reality".
problems for astronomers, who still don't have a basic definition for the word planet or a firm idea of what separates planets from stars.
It's not as sexy as having a word like "planet", but all this confusion could be eliminated with a basic classification system that took into account distinguishing characteristics besides just it's mass.
As an example, one could define these objects through two primary attributes: The body's mass and the mass of that which it orbits. As I don't have exact mass data at hand, this example will use the following over-simplifications:
S = Solar Mass
G = Gas Giant Mass
R = Rock Planet Mass
M = Minor Mass ( appx Phobos to Pluto )
A = Asteroid Mass
D = Debrit ( 1m or smaller )
Of course, the real system would use exact scientific measurments rather than these crude examples.
Earth = SR ( Rock Planet Mass orbiting a Solar Mass )
Jupiter = SG ( Gas Giant Mass orbiting a Solar Mass )
Pluto = SM ( Minor Mass orbiting a Solar Mass )
Titan = GR ( Rock Planet Mass orbiting a Gas Giant Mass )
etc
etc
You could even create a symbol to represent the galactic center, which could be used in relation to stars and other free roaming bodies. Binary stars can be represented using SS, since they're orbiting each other.
Anyway, the point is that you can not come up with solid definitions of these bodies on mass alone. Take into account other major factors as this example does.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
My God, man! An oompa loompa!
Pulling together some suggestions seen in other threads with my own thoughts:
A star: Generates energy by sustained, large-scale fusion reactions.
A brown dwarf: A 'failed' star with less than the minimum mass necessary for sustained large-scale fusion, but enough to generate either minimal fusion reactions or to glow by the energy of it's slow gravitational contraction. To be honest, I can't think of any non-arbitrary distinction between a brown dwarf and a large gas giant, just as there is a continuous spectrum between a centrally-planned and free-market economy.
A planet: Is massive enough to form itself into a sphere or ellipsoid and orbits a star in a stable orbit uniquely it's own (ie is not shared with other orbiting bodies, and is circular or some semblance thereof).
A moon: A natural satellite that orbits a planet in an orbit uniquely it's own (re: is not a ring particle).
An asteroid: An object, not any of the above, that orbits a star and does not contain significant deposits of volatile compounds.
A comet: An asteroid that does contain significant amounts of volatile compounds.
By my system, Ceres is an asteroid, because it does not have it's orbit to itself. Pluto is a planet because it can pull itself into a sphere, and possesses it's own (admittedly rather elliptical) orbit. The KBOs are all asteroids or dormant comets, because they either lack the mass to shape themselves or share orbits with other KBOs.
ME: Hey professor! What separates planets from stars?
PROFESSOR: Space. Or about 2,500 to 50,000 Kelvin.
ME: Thanks professor!
It's that reporter for Space.com, Robert Roy Britt.
He has a habit of using the word "solar" for non-solar topics, and of course the Space.com stories end up on the wire services and are repeated by hundreds of TV talking heads. All that does is make the problem worse. It's bad enough that most people don't even know the name of their star. We don't need them attaching that name to totally unrelated objects.
Here's an unedited quote from him regarding a complaint on the same subject from one of his previous stories:
Thanks for your note. You are correct in the strict sense, but astronomy and language are evolving. We now know of many other systems that look familiar. And many astronomers have come use the term "solar system" to describe other planetary systems. It's becoming a bit like Kleenex in its generic usage.
I'm all for accuracy, but I think also that language is fluid, and if astronomers use the term interchangeably, then I think it's best I do so,
too. I also find it the most convenient term to convey a system of planets with a central star -- and there are hints of lone, wandering planets not
hosted by a star, so a distinction is helpful (at least until the latter situation is sorted out). I appreciate hearing from you because notes like
yours help me frame my approach to writing.
Sig for hire.
Would The Earth cease to be a planet just because something threw it forever out of our solar system? (Well actually, for now almost certainly yes, 'cos then there'd be no humans to define "planet" ;). At what point does an asteroid have to collect enough dust and become spherical enough to become a planet? Not all planets are spherical - Mercury is more elliptical from memory, thanks to effects of being in close proximity to a star... errr, the Sun. They wouldn't even have to necessarily spin - though that would help with roundness.
Also from recollection of earlier dictionaries, our moon would become a planet (or planetoid?) if some catastrophe yanked it away from the earth, to forever go around the sun - because it wouldn't then be a body orbiting a planet - a simple, but rock solid definition IMHO. Oh but hang on, what about all those little rocks orbiting Earth???
In that respect remember that some definitions are probably inherently transitional, depending on what they are doing. If it's a rock orbiting a sun, it's an asteroid, around a planet then it's a moon, if it's become round (has enough gravitational pull to hold itself together?) then it's a planet if it's going around a Sun - or is it, because what if the planet escapes?
I believe the dictionary definition of "moon" is pretty good already, but as for the rest... I hope you can see what I mean because it gives me a headache! If we set a strict definition of a type of celestial body, and then suddenly we discover that there are so many more bodies that just don't quite fit the category, then what? I don't fancy taking liquid paper to my dictionary. So I will leave splitting those hairs to the experts.
planet n.
Big lump of stuff, roundish, spinning a bit, usually orbiting a, um, star thingy. Might have aliens on, but probably not. Probably.
Astronomers indeed have a very good idea what is a star and what is a planet! =) We might brag about if Pluto is a planet or not, but there's just no dispute whether something that burns nuclear fuel is a star or a giant planet set on fire by some neanderthals in a dense wood, or some President with a finger on the button... And if it orbits around bigger body while being cold, there's a fat chance it is not a star. Unless there's Holywood sign on some hill. Or it might harbour semi-intelligent life that belives everything revolves around them, but in that case we're talking law of relativity, and it doesn't have much to do with intelligence, for nature laws are quite happy even if they're not discovered by self-proclaimed intelligent life forms. :)
That sounds more like the creationists' consensus. Scientists are less obsessed with being God's special little unique creation, and are more likely to adopt the view "we haven't seen any but we're sure they must exist".
Together, more problems for astronomers, who still don't have a basic definition for the word planet or a firm idea of what separates planets from stars.
It is rather funny how we humans need a way to pigeon hole everything we observe. And the more we observe the more pigeon holes we need to add. The universe didn't come with labels and many things are don't neatly fall in to a area. I think we have forgotten that language is created by humans and can and should be expanded to explain new things we observe. Maybe english needs a word that explains objects in less of a pigeon hold method and more of a gradient scale. I will use say we use the word. "blong" for something is more then something else like "Jupiter is planet blong star", quaz for something that is in the middle "Pluto is planet quaz asteriod"
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Perhaps this was addressed in an earlier post, but I think they are trying to build an all-encompassing definition. If they continue to build additions and corrolaries onto the definiton of the word "Planet" it will become ever more ill-fitting to any of the various objects they are decribing. What is really needed are more words to describe them. Perhaps something as simple as working a little genus/species into the cataloging system would help to clear up the confusion and give a working definition, e.g. Just as all Primates are not humans, all planets do not (as we now know) revolve around a star...and if calling planets roaming planets or orbiting planets to clear up their state of being, well all the better for us.
Shakespeare described their plight best
Or, as Robert B. Laughlin, professor of physics at Stanford University and a 1998 Nobel laureate in physics, said recently:
"Brutal objectivity" is what limits most people, even the smartest. It is easy to become comfortable in our view of the universe and forget the uncomfortable process that brought us to this view in the first place.
In fact, a comfortable view is almost a warning. When things fit together too well, there must be something wrong.
the word "hoshi" means both planet and star.
So we live on a hoshi, and all the bright things you see in the sky are also hoshi's.
Reminds me of one of the trivia questions that I find most annoying:
"What is the largest island?"
To which I always want to reply "either Eurasia or Eurasia/Africa depending on if you think they are sufficiently connected".
The question they are really trying to ask would be more honestly asked as: "What is the arbitrary cutoff point geographers have defined for 'Island', well at least the geographers we most recently talked to?"
Conventions-through-grey-areas are great for assisting in information transmission and processing when you are clearly on one side of the grey area or the other. But in cases when you are right around the grey area, it actually hampers communication and effective thought when people forget that these words are just arbitrary defintions used to simplify things for our tiny primate brains.
I am Blong, of the Quaz nebula. By using my name without permission you have violated galactic copysnark law. Your puny planet will be destrobulated in 65 metrons.