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Planets Without Stars or Mini-Solar Systems?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ronin-played-by-planet-di-niro dept.

iamlucky13 writes "An article today on space.com discusses the discovery of 6 objects by the European Southern Observatory in Chile that are smaller than typical brown dwarfs, larger than Jupiter, and not orbiting any stars. The objects are surrounded by disks of gas and dust possibly similar to the early solar system. In addition to presenting astronomers with a new group of objects to study, the finding also deepens the debate over what makes a planet. The scientists responsible for the discovery sidestep the question by calling them 'Planetary Mass Objects,' or planemos."

10 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Even Chile wants to be in Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    rather than be associated with the word "America"

  2. vomits at lovely new slashdot layout by Billly+Gates · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yeah offtopic, but no where else is there to nag about it.

    Anyone using Opera had problems with it besides me?

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:vomits at lovely new slashdot layout by martinX · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Firefox 1.5.0.4 on XP is fine.

      Safari (latest) on 10.4 (latest) is fine.

      Words overlapping each other does sound like a Firefox rendering problem.

      Not sold completely on the /. layout but I suppose it will grow on me. Though after being on /. , Apple's site is starting to look a little ordinary. They're updating bits of it, but I think the overall look needs a makeover.

      Are you reading this random comment, Steve? :-)

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    2. Re:vomits at lovely new slashdot layout by Flimzy · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      In IE6, I dislike that the font is too BIG! And a few minor issues with the backgrounds being in the wrong place.... I want my old slashdot back :(

    3. Re:vomits at lovely new slashdot layout by HTL2001 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      The old CSS only had a problem on IE and I haven't tried IE enough on this layout to comment on how it handles.

      The only problem I've had is that the story got bumped down about half a page length once, but didn't cause overlapping.

      --
      By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
    4. Re:vomits at lovely new slashdot layout by FhnuZoag · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      FF 1.5.3 on a fresh Dapper installation is fine. And old Slashdot had display problems for me, so meh.

  3. Old stylesheets? by mobby_6kl · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Sorry for yet more offtopic, but does anyone have the previous slashdot stylesheets saved or cached somewhere? I did anticipate the need for them, but I thought somebody would surely post them in the official "design changed today" story, and I certainly didn't expect the change to happen so soon. Having the real ones would be an improvement over trying to hack something together from the slashcode base and alternative stylesheets.

  4. slashdot-shinyfix.css v.001 (5 Jun 2006) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    LINK: http://slashdot.org/~Slashdot+Shinyfix/journal/136 930
    PREVIEW: http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/658/slashdotshiny fixv0012vy.png

    While Alex Bendiken's redesign of Slashdot is a very welcome change, not to
    mention gorgeous, many Slashdotters have discovered deficiencies in the
    resulting rendering. In particular, the usability of Slashdot's story
    commenting has taken a beating. To ameliorate these "misfeatures", this CSS
    file aims to do the following:

        1. Add visual cues to aid scanning through nested comments and replies.
        2. Move comment score back to the subject.
        3. Allow <i> and <em> within blockquotes.
        4. Adjust body text font and size.
        5. Set a fixed width for comments (e.g. 42 ems) to maintain readability
              with very wide browser windows. [DISABLED BY DEFAULT]

    You can enable or disable these fixes, as desired, by commenting or
    uncommenting the relevant CSS below.

    NOTE: Currently, fix #2 only works in Safari (and perhaps Opera?).
    Gecko-based browsers do not support "display: inline-block," which is used to
    reposition the post score. If someone knows how to hack together an
    equivalent for Firefox, please contribute!

    INSTALLATION (SAFARI): Set this as the style sheet for slashdot.org with a
    PithHelmet* rule or similar, or in Preferences > Advanced.
                                  (* < http://www.culater.net/software/PithHelmet/PithHel met.php >)

    INSTALLATION (FIREFOX): As if you need instructions.

    LICENSE: The contents of this file are hereby released into the public
    domain. Take that, Stallmanists.

  5. It has to be asked? by xxdinkxx · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    do these planemos as they call it, run linux? now for my sig. www.mymegastores.com -- go there if you really want to move out of your parents basement

  6. Looks much better on Linux by Billly+Gates · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I mainly use WindowsXP and the fonts are small and look like garbage.

    It looks better with Firefox under Linux then Windows. I wonder if I can adjust firefox's fonts with just one domain?

    --
    http://saveie6.com/