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Strange New 'Twin' Worlds Found
toomanyairmiles writes "The BBC reports on the the discovery of 'twin worlds' which orbit each other, successfully blurring the line between planets and stars. 'Their existence challenges current theories about the formation of planets and stars.' according to the Journal of Science article which reports their existence. 'The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or "planemos", which are not bound to stars.'"
However insular we want to be, the universe has all sorts of stuff in it that we would never expect. Sure with CGI, we can 'visit' anything we can imagine.
It's just great that there is more than that out there. Gives me hope for the future.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
It's a space station!
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Stars can only 'ignite' when enough mass accumulates. It would make sense that often there would be chunks of smaller mass just floating around until they scoop up enough matter into their gravity well to start fusion.
I think we can just stick to "The twins"...
I'm sorry, but what exactly does this challenge? A planet doesn't need a star to form.
If a nebula is the right size, it may form a planet--and it doesn't care if there's any stars nearby. It is then affected by something's gravity, and goes careening off into space.
Additionally, to make twin planets, you'd need only a nebula that's peanut-shaped, so it collapses into two bodies.
Other extra-solar planets were dicovered when the astronomers saw the doppler shift in their stars. These planets do not orbit stars (as far as I can tell from the article) so there's no light to see them and there isn't a star to see any "shifts". So how were these stars discovered? X-Rays? What?
Anticipating a possible question: no, a previously-unknown population of "planemos" can't be the dark matter astronomers are searching for. First, there were enough of them to account for the huge mass of dark matter (some 95 percent of the mass of the universe), we would have seen a lot more of them by now. "Massive compact halo objects", or basically planetoids, brown dwarfs, neutron stars, etc. have been detected (via gravitational lensing), but they are known not to comprise the majority of dark matter due to such bounds on their total mass. Furthermore, from the effects of dark matter on structure formation in the early universe, the cosmic background radiation, and other factors, it is known that "normal" matter can't account for most of the mass of dark matter, either: most of it needs to be in the form of "weakly interactive massive particles" (sort of analogous to neutrinos, except much heavier).
Isn't it amazing how well the artist's impression clearly and realisticly show that the these objects are separated by "six times the distance between the Sun and Pluto"?
g /_41960898_planemos_203_eso.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41960000/jp
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
"The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or "planemos", which are not bound to stars.'"
Once again proving that astronomers should not be naming things while drunk. Here's a handy reminder: "Remember the Planemos!"
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Ok so our Solar System is mostly flat. I mean, the orbits of the planets tend to follow the same orbital plane, with a notable exception of course.
The reason the planets orbit in the same plane is the same reason rings around celestial bodies like Saturn eventually fall into a common orbital plane: gravity. As the mass collects there is something like a gyroscopic effect, causing a general influence towards the common plane.
But.. if that's the case, why do we have a planet that doesn't follow the plane? And, also, is it slowly falling into line with the rest? (I think the answer is yes, it is, but I don't know for sure.. at least I think it should be).
Which leads me to ask.. Was Pluto originally extra-solar? Could it have developed in this eccentric orbit if it were originally part of the solar system when it formed? Is it possible that Pluto somehow, amongst the billions of years our system has been around, floated into orbit here for good, from Out There?
And if so, if there are enough of these free-floating masses out there, what kind of percentage of the unobservable 'dark matter' might this account for?
Just a few of my questions,
TLF
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"Yes, it's really easy to confuse a ball of rock with a star. I mean, the similarities are so obvious."
In terms of such stars as Ben Affleck, the similarities do start to build up.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Which one is the evil twin?
Thank you , I'll be here all evening!
how long until
I dont like the name one bit... they have NOTHING to do with planets... they are stelar objects whos mass is simply to low to get their internal temperature high enough for hydrogen fusion.
IMHO better names would be: stellar dwarfs, non-fusion stars or something along those lines... they arnt planets.
Snakes, on a PLANEMO????
Where were you when the voynix came?
No need to get all excited because Galactus phoned in to Magrathea for the two-for-one special. Different toppings on each planemo, no less.
Where were you when the voynix came?
The first planemo will make a very close approach to Earth. The second will smack right into earth. But by then the spaceships we cobble together with nifty 50's retro-tech will have blasted off with the lucky few colonists to build a new civilization. Too bad with such a small gene pool they'll devolve into slack jawed mouth breathers in a few generations. Looks like the future of reality TV is assured.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
PlanemO's are actually God's cereal.
so they found a binary rogue planet system... now theyre just trying to create a new jargonistic name for them so they can be in the history books.. just call a spade a spade already.. "binary rogues"... that's it..
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Six times the distance from the Sun to Pluto. If you're on one planet you might be lucky to see the tiny dot of the other planet in the night's sky... I don't recall if it said they were orbiting a star (for light) or not. So even the picture is misleading.
They both orbit around their common center of mass, as do all pairs of orbiting bodies. The moon and earth actually orbit around a point 4700km from the earths center.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Bullish Machine Tzar
Smell that ?
It's the smell of rendering farms heating up at Pixar.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
this is what happens when the moon gets a bulge :/
Although it's interesting that we've now been able to observe such a pair of dim objects in this configuration, I see nothing strange about its existence. Astronomers have known about binary (and trinary) star systems for ages, but those were always easy to spot because they're so luminous. Brown dwarfs, on the other hand, are much harder to find, but thanks to modern technology we've found quite a few and astronomers now believe that they are in general quite numerous. So, what's so strange about two brown dwarfs orbiting one another? Nothing, really. It may be the first time we've found a binary system like this, sure -- great! -- but it's not strange at all; that's just an adjective thrown in by the media to spice the story.