Slashdot Mirror
Hot Jupiters May Indicate Hospitable Planets
eldavojohn writes "An interesting article from National Geographic points out that other solar systems which contain planets like a 'Hot Jupiter' have a higher chance of also containing Earth-like planets." From the article: "'We now think there is a new class of ocean-covered--and possibly habitable--planets in solar systems unlike our own,' Raymond said. The simulations also showed that rocky planets known as hot Earths may often form when hot Jupiters push material forward during their inward treks. But hot Earths, which can be up to five times bigger than our Earth, orbit closer to their stars and are not likely to support life. Even if water does contribute to their formation, most hot Earths probably end up dry, study co-author Raymond says. "
At first it says that a Hot Jupiter would make a habitable planet, but then it says that the Hot Earths it makes will be uninhabitable.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
What we need is a five-year mission to explore these strange, new worlds, seek out new life, and new civilizations...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
"Hot Jupiter, Batman! What's going on here?"
Yah, I sometimes post to Slashdot after hitting the bong too.
But of course if you can get more hits for advertising on
-- SIGFPE
Rather than the clunky, misleading, and overly broad use of "Earth like," I wish articles like this would use the perfectly good term "terrestrial."
Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth are all terrestrials. Rocky worlds, as opposed to gas giants or icy bodies.
Would you hit it?
Enough gravity, and you may not have a choice.
emt 377 emt 4
Step 1) Discover possibly habitable worlds (or get others to do it for you)
Step 2) Sell acreage on said worlds
Step 3) Profit!
There is no ??? here, it's a pure goldmine. I have to hop on this right away (PATENT PENDING PATENT PENDING PATENT PENDING).
Once I run out of acreage on discovered planets, I'll just start selling space on the next discovered one.
C'mon you know you want a beach house in an entirely different galaxy (nevermind that the beach overlooks an ocean of magma).
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Depends. What if his original hypothesis was the result of a divide by fish error? Proof, I tell you. Or at least 180 proof.
Cats and dogs are sentient, as the term is generally used. The term has sometimes been borrowed in science fiction to denote human-like intellect, but given its well-established use, that's a poor borrowing (better is the more common "sapient" or, as a noun, "sophont"; the latter isn't a word in general use but has an appropriate etymology, the former is in general use, but in a way that supports the pseudo-technical extension of its meaning to this use better than "sentient".)
"Hot Jupiters!" has just become my favorite exclamation, bumping "Good Gravy!" off the list and pushing "OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!!" down to the #2 spot.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Has anybody exhaustively explored the concept?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
...the term for an "earth-like" planet is "Class M".
These scientists, however, are talking about "Hot Earths" -- which would be "Class L" planets.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
If you read the article, it's a bit more clear than the summary apparently was for you.
The article is saying that as Hot Jupiters migrate inwards, they temporarily disrupt the belt of debris in the habitable zone of a forming solar system. Then, after the Hot Jupiter has passed through, that debris has a chance to coalesce into habitable, Earth-like planets. In addition to this (and this is where careful reading and good reading comprehension skills come in handy), Hot Earths can be formed when Hot Jupiters push some material forward with them during their inward migration. From the article:(Emphasis added.)
Jeebus, buddy, why start with love? Why not just start with randomness? You have enough of that, you automatically have everything else you mentioned. And you have an infinite amount of that. Any particular slice of that randomness might define a starting condition, a set of rules to eveolve the starting condition, or a point along that evolution.
Love is such a hokey place to start. Why not shoot higher? Start with awareness, or consciousness, or reference, or division or some other abstract concept that hasn't already been done to death. Love. Fegh. I did that one when I was four. Not that it's not nice and all, but starting from there necessarily leads to some mind numbing inconsitencies when you think far enought through the implications.
Here's a fun one: You start with a lack of any definition whatsoever. This lack of definition necessarily includes all possible definitions as well as all lack of definition, to say it doesn't is to define it. So zero is not nothingness any more than it is the lack of nothingness. Some definitions imply a set of laws and a starting condition, also conveniently contained within our infinite undefined nothingness. Zero becomes one because it needs something to refer to it, and one becomes two for the same reason. The Ain Soph becomes the Way, which becomes Yin and Yang. Yang is nothing, refering to everything. Yin is everything, refering to nothing, and the way is the laws which move the two forward, becoming the ten-thousand things (or the world, as it is called in Buddhist philosophy.) I just made that one up off the top of my head.
Honestly, you kids these days, you think you invented this shit. Gah, stinks of the dharma, doesn't have a teacher to indoctrinate him into a particular path: this is what we get. "It's all love!" Well, you know where that leads?
God is love.
Love is blind.
Stevie Wonder is blind.
Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
Seriously, you should read a bit more of the classics.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Um, no, you just read the story wrong. The story is saying that both "hot Earths" and habitable, Earth-like planets can form in systems that have so-called hot Jupiters.
It amazes me how some folks are so quick to judge something that they actually wind up demonstrating their own ignorance (or inability to comprehend a slightly confusing science article, take your pick).
26.03.2137 1500 Entry #135811
Donny had an accident today and was exposed to the xenosphere out there. I'm starting to get a little worried here
because this morning he was still fine, four hours into the quarantine period but Walt says from what he's been
able to tell Donny has started coughing up bloody phlegm.
26.03.2137 2000 Entry #135812
Walt convinced me to let him take the portable xray into the airlock and took pictures of Donny's lungs.
From what I understand the situation couldn't be worse. According to Walt his lungs and bronchial tubes are
filling up with some sort of xenobiological organism kind of like a mold. Walt is trying out all sorts of
antibiotics and antiviral medication but it doesn't look good.
27.03.2137 0100 Entry #135813
Donny died a terrible death just minutes ago 0005 hours choking and going into convulsions. He was only exposed
to the atmosphere of this world for maybe four minutes until he got back into the lock but that's obviously all it
takes to get infected. To think that this planet looks so earth-like, the clear lakes and rivers and even the
atmosphere is remarkably close to Earth but then when you see this odd yellowish vegetation not really definable
in Earth terms as fungus, plant or animal, rather some odd mix of the characteristics of all of these... that
life is really hostile, I don't think people will ever be able to live here. Anyhow we buried Donny minutes after
and I think going from the discoloration on his left cheek that some of it was working it's way into his system
through the skin too but that will probably be explored in depth in Walt's medical report.
It works just as well the other way, too: Why is it that healthy people don't get digested and putrefied by bacteria, when corpses will be broken down in a few weeks or months? Because the human immune system has been refined over a long period to recognize and fight the particular organisms that continuously try to invade and digest our bodies. So why would you expect our immune system to know how to fight off a completely alien lifeform that it's never experienced anything like before? Hell, lots of people get sick just flying to another continent, let alone another ecosystem.
Keep in mind that in the eat-or-be-eaten scenario, the eater need only know how to digest and make use of the opponent's raw materials. The eatee has to know how to disable or kill the attacker, a much more difficult problem. Without our immune system, we're equivalent to 150-pound bags of rich growth medium...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.