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Sign Of "Embryonic Planets" Forming In Nearby Stellar Systems
Astronomers are pointing to three nearby stars they say may hold "embryonic planets" -- a missing link in planet-formation theories. As scientists try to piece together how our own planet came to be, they look to the forming planets of other star systems for clues. But astronomers have been unable to find evidence for one of the key stages of planet development, a period early in the planet's formation when it is only as large as tiny Pluto.
Planned Planethood.
Yeah, its a sad sad joke. Sue me.
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Is it possible that intelligent life could being viewing our planet as an embryonic planet, and we would see theirs as an embryonic planet? I don't know enough about how long ago that period was and how far away these planets are that we're looking at.
Finally, we can harvest these embryonic planets for stem cells to repair Earth's environment!
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Dear Friends it's time to act now to help overturn VOOR'RR vs SMEGMOORT and protect these young defenseless planetary bodies. We must save them from being infested by horrible disease such as Krittes, Brozoons or Humans. Won't you send a donation now?
Operation Planetary Rescue
c/o Society of the Great Prophet Zarquon,
Crab Nebular
Binary 6
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Doesn't it make more sense to consider the theories of the earlier universal structure (say, more independent gas and particle groups) that would bring the laws of gravity into the formation of both planetary masses and solar ones?
I imagine that the formation of planets (say, from those independent gas and particle groups attracting each other to collapse into planets/suns) would be easier to understand in an earlier universal structure, and may be less evident as the universe progressed to clumping into planets, etc?
Do we have a lot of evidence of areas of our own galaxy where there still might exist these independent gas and particle clouds, versus the chance that existing massive suns and planets are throwing off the chance for these clouds to exist?
At what point in its development and/or what orifice does an "Embryonic Planet" have to pass through to be classified as "born" under this metaphor/anthropomorphism?
I think what the parent means is that since light takes time to travel, and if someone were a billion light years away; they would be seeing light that's a billion years old and therefore, the Earth a billion years ago.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
This is my first Slashdot post, and I can't resist... I for one welcome our new Embryonic Planetary Overlords.
Do or do not. There is no try. --Jedi Master Yoda
The prime candidates being referenced in the study are only about 60 light years away (from space.com), and only between 10 and 200 million years old. In comparison, our sun is around 4.5 billion years old, so for an alien civillization to see our solar system in a similar stage of evolution, they'd be looking from about 75 million times as far away. Keep in mind we can't even see these nearby proto-planets ourselves...just evidence in the thickness of the star's accretion discs.
If they can see that far, they'd have already seen so much of this happening that our solar system wouldn't stand out as remotely interesting. And of course, they'd be seeing it 4.5 billion years before intelligent life arose, so they wouldn't get any thrill from spotting an extra-galactic neighbor, either.