Hubble Reinforces Planet Formation Theory

eldavojohn writes "Physorg is running an interesting article on the most recent of Hubble's accomplishments. It has provided us evidence supporting that which Emmanuel Kant proposed over 200 years ago — that planets do indeed form from disks of gas and dust that surround stars. The trick, apparently, was observing many cases where a star's planet forms on the exact same circumstellar disk as the dust and gas. Hubble also aided the researchers in determining the weight of many extrasolar planets. Some had contended that these were not planets but rather brown dwarf stars — which is determined by measuring their weight." Update: 10/12 23:08 GMT by T : That's not the only theory Hubble's recent observation's have supported: read on below for a bit more. somegeekynick writes "Hubble has spotted a bunch of little galaxies, nicknamed Spiderweb, over 10 billion light-years away in the process of merging. This observation supports the so-called 'bottom-up' theory of galaxy formation, according to which smaller clumps of matter collided and merged with each other to form larger galaxies during early stages of the universe's evolution."

Comments

Mass != Weight

[Daniel_Staal]

The article means mass, not weight: A star's weight is effetively zero, as it is in a microgravity environment. It's mass is trillions of kilograms.

Sorry, just needed to be pendantic for a moment.

Re:Mass != Weight

[balsy2001]

You are many orders of magnitude off on the mass of a star. The mass of the earth is 5^24 kilograms, so use that as a reference point The sun is ~ 1 billion times the mass of the earth.

Re:juxtaposition != causation

[peragrin]

of course do you really know that the planet they found wasn't a proto planet, in the process of being formed?

The onyl way to be certian is to go visit the planet.

Now where's my hyperspace drive.

Question for the science folks out there

[WndrBr3d]

So does this article back up the claim that Pluto isn't a planet, but more a free floating dwarf planet that was captured by our suns gravitational pull? I had read an article that supported the theory because it stated that Pluto was the only "planet" that didn't orbit on the same circumstellar disk as the rest of our solar systems planets.

Re:Question for the science folks out there

[Red Flayer]

This claim doesnt need backing up, its entirely obvious when you look at the orbit parameters.

Just as the sun orbits the earth, which is entirely obvious if you observe its track through the sky.

I happen to agree that it's most likely that Pluto is a captured object, but another theory out there is that Pluto formed the same as the first eight planets, but then was knocked out of a normal planetary orbit by collision with another object (like its moon).

In science, the term entirely obvious is a very bad one -- it limits the drive to seek alternate explanations, which may end up being the correct ones.

Re:Hear Here

[inviolet]

Yes! And then a big nose! Will we really have to wait 1000 years for somebody to invent a Smelloscope?