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Aftermath of Distant Planetary Collision?
gazurtoid writes "Astrobiology Magazine is reporting that astronomers have announced a mystery object orbiting the 8-million-year-old brown dwarf 2M1207 170 light-years from Earth might have formed from the collision and merger of two protoplanets. The object, known as 2M1207B, has puzzled astronomers since its discovery because it seems to fall outside the spectrum of physical possibility. Its combination of temperature, luminosity, and age do not match up with any theory. 'Hot, post-collision planets might be a whole new class of objects we will see with the Giant Magellan Telescope', said Eric Mamajek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."
Sounds like Borg Cube to me.
Perhaps they'll get me the hell outa here. I start dual booting Vista and linux to hedge my compatibility bets.
"He Who Dares Wins"
Is Astrobiology Magazine slumming with the astrophysicists while waiting for someone to find life outside of Earth's biosphere?
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I've been modeling the physics for this using an old lava lamp and a Cray 1 supercomputer. It's strangely compelling.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
af
"Resistance is futile!"
"No! Resistance is USELESS!"
Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum.
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...170 years ago we sent out an accidental radio signal - 30 years before we discovered what radio was. Unfortunately those aliens had their own version of SETI (called TTFA - Trying To Find Aliens), which picked up the signal. Due to their recent invention of the internet and the subsequent panic over "proof" of alien life they panicked and sadly ended wiping themselves out in a nuclear war. The planet itself survives as a nuclear wasteground, still too hot to support life, but now noticeable by the very planet that accidentally caused it's destruction all that time ago...
> ...it wouldn't shed much light on the history of Earth and the Moon directly.
Well yeah, that's the problem.
FTA: "Given its temperature, astronomers would expect a certain luminosity for 2M1207B, but it is 10 times fainter than expected."
That's no moon!