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."

Comments

Old Earth

[usul294]

Maybe these planets are similar to Earth after the collision that resulted in the Moon. If so it would be incredibly useful for learning about the formation of the Earth and the Moon. as well as our geologic history.

Re:Old Earth

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Sounds like what they're talking about here is a gas giant formed by the collision of two smaller gas giants, so it wouldn't shed much light on the history of Earth and the Moon directly.

"Plasma Universe" busted, by its own criteria?

[APODNereid]

It took me a while to find this, but pln2bz referenced an older SD comment, by leokor (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=388752&cid=21836590), which contains some material pertinent to this comment (of pln2bz's); I added the emphasis:

(4) Normally, I wouldn't have to say it, since experiment is a necessary part of scientific method--remove experiment, and you've got no science (and I mean it). But seeing the prevalence of purely theoretical approach in the mainstream astrophysics, I want to emphasize that Plasma Universe places a heavy emphasis on experiment. No matter who's the author of a theory--even Alfven himself--even a couple of contrary experiments may be grounds for reconsidering the theory's hypotheses. Plasma Universe does not construct no epicycles. No does it care how beautiful a theory is. As someone once said, the greatest tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact. So, in light of the dozens (hundreds?) of papers reporting 'magnetic reconnection' found in lab experiments, may we thus conclude that Alfvén's 'beautiful theory' has been 'slain'?

Based on what you have written, here in SD, pln2bz, I imagine that you (and Thornhill, and Scott, and Peratt, and ...) would be delighted to examine these experiments, in detail, to learn just how badly slain Alfvén's 'beautiful theory' is.

Would readers of this comment be interested to have these PU promoters join such a discussion? Of necessity, any internet discussion forum would have to support the relatively straight-forward posting of the symbols (etc) in the equations in Alfvén's theory, together with those in the papers reporting magnetic reconnection in the lab ... Slashdot does not (AFAIK) have this capability.

(3) General: Preference is given to the "actualistic" approach, as defined by Alfven in opposition to the "prophetic" approach. The former starts in the here-and-now and works its way outward and back in time. The latter proposes a very detailed knowledge about the origin of the universe and works its way in the opposite directions. Particular: As a result, Plasma Universe is stronger in the near-space science, as evidenced even by the now-wide acceptance of the Alfven-Birkeland theory of auroras. But it is fuzzier in the department of cosmology (not to say that the greater detail of the Big Bang theory necessarily means that it's correct). For more on this dichotomy, see the Alfven's paper where he introduces it: Leaving aside the mis-characterisations*, the Alfvén paper cited is now nearly 20 years old.

Maybe a review of the advances in observational cosmology over those 20 years might be of interest?

Perhaps a more detailed look at this "actualistic" vs "prophetic" dichotomy could prove insightful?

For example, how accurate a characterisation was it in 1990? How accurate today?

To what extent would such a detailed examination inform readers about this Plasma Universe idea?

* for example "The latter proposes a very detailed knowledge about the origin of the universe", "the Alfven-Birkeland theory of auroras"

Re:"Plasma Universe" busted, by its own criteria?

[APODNereid]

Actually, Michael Mozina has been performing an in-depth review of magnetic reconnection Is this, perchance, the same Michael Mozina who posted to this Einstein@Home thread (in the Science Message Board)?
[How the Sun shines: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=6058]

The guy who is co-author of a paper which claims the Sun was formed when a super-massive neutron star fragmented into smaller pieces, and one such fragment became a ~0.1 sol neutron star core of the Sun*?

The same one who has been particularly vehement, in many internet discussion fora, that a) the concept of 'neutron stars' violates his fundamental rule of science (that every theory must be tested, empirically, in controlled conditions, in earthly labs^), and b) the Sun has a solid (mostly iron?) surface?

The same one who is a co-author of a paper claiming that the Sun is powered (~67%) by the decay of excited neutrons in its core and (~34%) by standard fission reactions*? Yet who is also on record, in many fora, as claiming that "the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons)"?

The same one who claims that the mass of the Sun is under-estimated because the solar system is accelerating in the z-direction (or something like this)? That the 'missing matter' in galaxies is largely due to stars being more massive than estimated because they are composed largely of iron?

If so, then I wonder if you can ask him from which university he got his PhD in plasma physics? In which laboratories has he done plasma science experiments?

And when does he plan to publish a paper, based on his review, in a relevant IEEE journal (the one Peratt is editor of perhaps)?

Oh, and how many equations are presented in the laying out of his arguments?

* This idea resembles nothing like any 'Electric Universe' idea I've ever come across, nor do the papers he is a co-author of reference Birkeland, Alfvén, currents, Peratt, Thornhill, ... (at least, not that I remember). Maybe it's a different Michael Mozina.

^ You can find many lots of instances of him insisting that 'a gram' of something be produced in a lab before that something can be said to have been 'scientifically qualified'. Curiously, he has continued to say this long after the paper he co-authored went up on the arXiv preprint server.