Slashdot Mirror
Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
SpuriousLogic writes "Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn't exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago.
The planet is known as a 'hot Jupiter,' a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its "year") in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature.
Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit.
The problem is that a planet that close should be consumed by its parent star in less than a million years, say the authors at Keele University in England. The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago."
...IT'S A TRAP!!!!!
RFC2119
A planet must orbit the Sun.
t
Does anyone else feel that this planet might be able to defy conventional orbital mechanics through the power of Concentrated Evil?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You should meet the aliens living on it.
They're tougher than Chuck Norris (and that was supposed to be impossible too).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This study does demonstrate that either the measurements are wrong or our understanding of orbital dynamics is wrong. Knowing the former is important because it tells us we have to alter how we make the measurements and knowing the latter is important because it tells us we have to alter our understanding of physics. So it's the very antithesis of hubris.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's Disaster Area's stage in a parking orbit.
Perhaps it was thrown from a different solar system and captured by its star.
Free Martian Whores!
The Beast is imprisoned there!
Not necessarily. Maybe something knocked it out of its regular orbit and it's spiraling into the star. Maybe we're just witnessing its death.
Science doesn't already know everything, learns something new today it thought was impossible yesterday, news at 11.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
And it started out a billion years ago much further away...
Why do you think physicists need to visit a planet to be able to make reliable measurements about them? I would expect that they can have confidence in their measuring equipment in the same way that you can have confidence that the sun will rise in the morning. After all, you have never been there, how can you know anything about how it works?
It's closer to 6600 years? :)
Or other forces are acting on the planet besides gravitational force. We actually do not understand all forces we theorized so far.
----
Best sig: SIGSEGV
Perhaps they should reconsider their evaluation of its age...
I am not sure of the method they used to find this planet. If they are using the transit method, then there isn't a heck of a lot of interpretation to the numbers. You see how often the sun "blinks" because of the planet flashing across it. You get several observations, with a minimum of three (this is a reason why the closer planets get discovered quicker. it takes less time to verify). So, basically I don't think it is presumptuous at all. It is basic physics.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
perhaps it's spiraling to its demise after billions of years in a decaying orbit.
Its the Impossible Planet tell him to look for The Satan Pit
So if the orbit is decaying, we'll be able to measure it in 10 years, otherwise there will be useful data to refine theories about tidal forces in the surfaces of stars.
Interesting how in the article, they never use the word "impossible". Infact, they actually put forward a handful of possible (although unlikely)ways that this may have occurred.
There's bazillions of things that are unlikely to happen, but the universe is a big place. While we can't predict which particular weird thing we might observe next time, we shouldn't be all that surprised that weirdness is out there.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
That would fall under "our understanding of orbital dynamics is wrong".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Or it started out at a farther out orbit and is now within a million years of destruction?
Hmm, I was trying to find a good analogy. This isn't a good one. I was thinking about a prototype jet, and why would one belive that it should fly on its first test flight. Experiments have experimental error. But any researcher who is worth their salt has some idea of how large that error is. Basically, you are accusing the researchers of incompetence. Have you ever used binoculars? Why do you trust what you see, if you haven't been there to see it yourself?
...formed one billion years ago, but originally much more distant from the star. But its orbit was not stable, approaching quickly (in astronomical time) to the star; and we're just lucky to have found it in the final stage of the death spiral. If this is the case, it may even be possible to watch the final spectacle in a timeframe reasonable for human scale (a few thousand years, perhaps centuries, or even less).
Wild speculation of course... but just to be safe, I'm immediately canceling all my plans of space vacations near the Wasp18 system. I never liked wasps anyway.
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
The error bars are published along with the data, you know. There's no presumption here. These astronomers are presenting data and then interpreting the results in order to suggest probably implications.
Why is it that every "scientists find something new and try to understand it" article on Slashdot prompts comments that get modded up (why is the parent +4 insightful?!) for complaining that arrogant scientists are making stuff up and leaping to conclusions?
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Perhaps instead of a hot Jupiter what they have found is a cold sun?
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
Why do we need to go to a planet to take measurements? By your logic, we should not be able to confidently say anything about any of the celestial bodies save the Earth and our moon. All the astronomers (not physicists, mind you) are doing here is determining (not presuming) the orbital period of a planet around a star, which is EXTREMELY straightforward, even for an exoplanet such as this. It is also fairly straightforward to the age of a star. Since all of our current knowledge shows that planets tend to form at the same time as a star, we are taking that as the most likely scenario here. The scientists in question are making it totally clear that there is a disconnect between theory and observation here, and are investigating more deeply to find out how to amend theory and enhance our understanding of the cosmos. I cannot see what is presumptuous here, other than your ignorant blatherings of presumptuousness.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy. If we look at enough of them then at some point by the laws of probability we're going to find a planet on its final death spiral into the star. I don't see what the issue is. Ok , if in 50 years time the planets orbit hasn't changed *then* we start to worry and revisit our theories.
"Oh wait, I just forgot to add resistance." - Quoted by my high school physics teacher. There are plenty of human error involved with not applying the laws of physics correctly. Let's not all get on the bandwagon just yet that we have broken the laws of physics. I doubt even the scientists involved believe this, it's just another slow news day at the LA times and they're trying to make something big out of something little.
Presumptuous?? Isn't that how science is meant to work - collect data, try and find patterns, make presumptions (hypothesises) about the underlying systems, and then collect more data to see if their presumptions are born out.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm... that's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov
This sig all sigs devours
Why do you think physicists need to visit a planet to be able to make reliable measurements about them?
I'm not saying that, exactly; I'm saying that when we measure things, we have greater confidence in them when we have multiple ways of measuring, and they all agree.
Visiting and making more direct observations would be such a way; I can't really think of any others, since I'm not actually a scientist.
But it seems to me that if we had multiple independent confirmations of the observation, using different methodologies, and they all agreed, we'd be much more confident in the interpretations and conclusions.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Orbital dynamics is rather unlikely to be the problem, given the vast pool of data to support it. Our understanding of the tidal interactions between planets and stars, which is the basis of the expected orbital decay, requires rather more levels of inference and are based on considerably more tenuous data. This is where I would be looking for the problems.
Or the third option - the orbit it has now isn't the original orbit. Plenty possibilities here.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
we're actually watching the planet in the process of being consumed
which would be highly unlikely, to get that timing right, as there's a window of only a couple thousand years in which we could see that happen, but maybe that's what we're really seeing
in which case, rather than revise orbital dynamics, this planet could contribute to our understanding of astrophysics/ michael bay style thermodynamics by allowing us to watch a jupiter sized planet ripped to smithereens in real time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
from TFA:
A second possibility is that the planet hasn't been in its current position very long, Hellier said. Wasp-18b could have spiraled inward to its current position over millions of years. It may have been bumped out of its original orbit by another planet, for example.
"However, that does not solve the problem," Hellier said, because the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did.
hth
It implies no such thing. Given the evidence, I would suggest that by far the most likely explanation is something that the authors of paper themselves suggest; something has happened since to knock a planet into a close orbit of the star. There are many explanations that don't require a modification of orbital mechanics (pretty much any modification that is big enough to produce this planet with no external influence, would give an effect that is observable within out solar system), why assume that such a modification is required? The slashdot headline is inflammatory, it is a "puzzle" (the article headline), not "impossible" (the slashdot headline).
You forgot about the fourth option. Cheeseburgers.
We have filed notices to build an intergalactic highway through that planet. Notice can be perused in a nearby star, hardly 4.5 light years away in a dark unlit basement without stairs in a filing cabinet in a disused toilet, with a "Beware of the Cheetah" sign on the door.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why is it that every "scientists find something new and try to understand it" article on Slashdot prompts comments that get modded up (why is the parent +4 insightful?!) for complaining that arrogant scientists are making stuff up and leaping to conclusions?
Probably because the average slashdotter doesn't know anything about science. Scientific facts, maybe, but procedure? No. See any global warming thread for further details.
This story appeared in USA Today yesterday. From the article:
Putting aside the sensationalist journalism (calling it a "suicidal planet"), it appears that its proximity to its star is causing plasma tides on the star (similar to the tides we have here on Earth due to the Moon), and those tides are warping the planets orbit.
Best "String" Ever!
What do you mean "presumptuous"? This is how science works: based on past observations, you construct a theory of how things should work. Then you make new observations that contradict your theory, and you revise it. That's what we're seeing here.
I'm impressed by the speed at which the WASP team makes these "impossible" discoveries, though. A few days ago there was news about WASP-17b that orbited around its sun in the wrong direction, and now WASP-18b orbits too close to its sun. Cool stuff.
I'm going with the "a bunch of fraternity aliens pulling a practical joke" theory.
To be serious, hasn't science had a history of finding "impossible" things, then turned out to be 1) a mistake 2) something new that changed some thinking 3) a weird-ass anomaly 4) the platypus? Let's all just calm down until we find the platypus alien pranksters!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
""However, that does not solve the problem," Hellier said, because the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did."
Unlikely != impossible. And I'd even question the unlikely bit. With many researchers looking for interesting objects, don't be surprised when you find...an interesting object.
Or the third option - the orbit it has now isn't the original orbit.
That's pretty much a given, with that orbit.
This is the problem with science journalism...it tries to jazz up stories to make them more interesting to the layperson, but in the process ends up making scientists look like idiots. I seriously doubt these astrophysicists discovered this planet and immediately ran to the nearest reporter, and breathlessly declared that 400 years of accumulated knowledge in orbital dynamics is wrong because they just discovered an "impossible" planet.
What probably happened is something more like this:
An astrophysicist and a journalist sit at a bar after a long day's work looking through telescopes/making shit up.
Journalist: Anything interesting happen today?
Astrophysicist: Actually, yes. We discovered a planet orbiting around another star.
Journalist: Another one? I said interesting, not yet another stupid gas-ball orbiting around another star...that's page H12 at best.
Astrophysicist: Well, the funny thing is, this star is orbiting closer to its star than it ought to be able to...so it's kind of weird.
Journalist: (rolling eyes) So what?
Astrophysicist: The orbit its in should be unstable...it should eventually fall into the star and burn up.
Journalist: Okay, so we have some planet that might be about to burn up...okay, we're probably page 5C with that one.
Astrophysicist: Sure, that's probably what will happen. Of course, if the orbit its in is somehow stable, which is impossible, that would mean 400 years of understanding in orbital dynamics is wrong...(chuckles)...but of course that's ridiculous.
Journalist: 400 years of physics wrong? Impossible planet? I smell a Pulitzer! To the presses!
Astrophysicist: Hey, wait! Come back! That's not what I said...Oh well, at least I can use his article in my next grant application.
Aaaaaand...scene!
Absolutely. However, scientists get nervous when they see something this unlikely, especially with such a small sample of similar systems to date. Often, such weirdness means something else is going on that we didn't consider, so the nervousness is justifiable in the general case.
So every day(year) after lunch, those guys are talking about how this is a HOT summer this day. The idle banter about the weather must get really repetitive there.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Or maybe that's one fucking badass planet. The lesson to be learned here is do not fuck with Wasp-18b.
good point. maybe it formed much further out and has been spiralling inward ever since.
Quick! To the Space Shuttle!!!
I agree with the general sentiment, but there is an important caveat. One single measurement on a reliable apparatus is worth any number of dubious measurements on dodgy equipment. My point (which I didn't make very well) is that the distance to the target is not necessarily a factor in judging the reliability of the results. I am a professional physicist, I trust their result, but I also am pretty sure (I would say 'believe', but I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression that my 'beliefs' are not subject to reversal, as demanded by compelling evidence) that there is an explanation that doesn't require rewriting any of the fundamental laws of physics. It may well require rewriting some of the 'rules of thumb' that astrophysicists use to judge what to expect from their measurements, but if science teaches us anything, it is that 'intuition' and 'rules of thumb' are not a good guide to telling us the secrets of how the world works.
(By the way, if the ultimate explanation does require rewriting some laws of physics, I would be very happy - but it would need very compelling evidence, and in particular, the requirement that any changes to the laws of physics don't affect what we observe every day on the Earth is a very severe constraint on how they could be modified. The current arguments about what new physics look like affect either very tiny length scales [string theory], or very large length scales [modifications to relativity etc], neither of which have any consequence for ordinary life, and are not measurable without equipment at the forefront of technology.)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
WASPs always look old for their age!
BADA BOOM!
I'll be here all week. Please tip your waiters...
Yeah. I don't agree with this 'gravity' consensus either. These so-called 'scientists' think they know everything.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
In Soviet Russia the red star orbits You!
Fox News Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Will Obama's nazi socialist policies tax the good citizens of Wasp-18b until they commit suicide by diving into their sun? Find out at 8pm on The Factor!
MSNBC Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Will Dick Cheney come back to power and invade it on false pretenses? Find out at 8pm on Countdown!
CNN Journalist: Impossible planet discovered. Watch our exciting report wherein we will use cutting edge technology to display an image of this planet above a floating pie chart!
Tabloid Journalist: Loch Ness Monster seen again! Read the shocking new evidence that proves she hails from Wasp-18b!
Slashdot Editor: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
Different Slashdot Editor a week later: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Perhaps you picked your words wrong then. "How presumptuous is it..." reads as a rhetorical question, with the implication being "it is presumptuous...".
Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
Since universe is full of such marvels.
I may get lucky and find the impossible woman ?
One that is not supposed to exist but suits me.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
> Queue the 'Killer meteor will come within 100 miles of earth!' too as the
> scientists ramp up their efforts to get funding.
Them getting funding for things like LINEAR is, of course, really silly
compared to:
"Oh look, honey, a shooting star! Quick...let's make a wish!"
"Wow, honey, that IS a beautiful shooting star!"
"I can still see it...you too, right?"
"That shooting star is...farking BIG!"
"Is it just me or is this gettin' creepy?"
"Now I can hear it too :-/"
WHOOOOOOSH........KABOOM!!!!!
[insert earth tremors, tidal waves and general catastrophe here]
Elegant, simple, probably right.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Which is driven by the desire for validation through possession of "secret knowledge."
Therefore, NASA faked the moon landing, auto makers have suppressed the 200mpg carburetor, and scientists are all glory seeker publishing dubious results that they make up as they go along. /. has a large tin foil hat contingency, so this should come as no great shock.
Think of the coin donation containers that have a curved funnel and a ramp for the coin. You drop the coin in, and it goes around and around the funnel. It's orbit slowly decays, getting closer to the hole with each orbit. As it gets closer, it speeds up. By the time it hits the neck of the funnel, it's going extremely fast, and takes much longer than one would think it should to finally disappear down the hole. Is it not possible this is the same phenomenon? Imagine if Jupiter had a decaying orbit, such that it would take a billion years to reach the orbit of Mercury. It would be going pretty damn fast by then, no?
Agreed; my word choice could have been better.
But then, "impossible planet" is probably also a poor choice of words (I'm not clear as to whose). But clearly, it's not impossible if it really is out there. It's interesting, and perhaps currently doesn't make sense based on what we believe we know about planets and stars, but not impossible. Either our model is wrong, or our measurements are wrong; the universe is right.
If we think something is "impossible" and we're looking right at it, that's our problem. Hopefully, with more measurements, more thought, and more information, we'll be able to resolve that problem.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
mmm ... planet. Tasty.
"That's no moon... It's a space station!" -Obi-Wan Kenobi
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
discombobulated....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
You know, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe is the proof we need of existing (underground?) alien civilizations. And could be cheaper than a Dyson sphere or a ring world.
Of course, also could mean that that planet wasnt in that orbit more than a millon years ago for some natural causes. Occam rulez.. and shaves.
"The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago."
That's the beauty of science. Things can be hypothesized about and theories can be made, but as we go deeper into those ideas and actually take a closer look, we discover they can and do change (the way things work, in our eyes). So I guess that either the Wasp-18 star is not a billion years or maybe planets simply do not necessarily form at the same time as the star does. We can't know everything right away, but it is definitely fun to find out as we move on!
Actually the orbital dynamics discovered(?) by Johannes Kepler (or Newton) was never in doubt regardless of what the article says. That's because what they're really talking about here is the rate of drag caused by the star the planet is orbiting; this needless to say was never conceived of let alone formulated 400 years ago. Without these stellar winds coming from the star, the planet would keep orbiting just fine forever (unless the star was a really dense object in which case general relativity would come to play but I digress).
The astronomers think that some (relatively new) theories regarding the amount of stellar wind from the parent star could be wrong, otherwise the planet is due to fall into the star in ~1 million years, a time too short on the scale of the lifetime of the system to be chalked up to coincidence. Doesn't have the same sound bite as claiming that 400 years of science could be wrong though.
Well, one in a million chances do crop up nine times out of ten.
which is totally what she said
That's ok, from its perspective at 330 light years away, it's only 70 years since Kepler... if we just give it a few more centuries I am sure it will catch up with the new laws of orbital dynamics.
The finding of this impossible planet clearly means that the infinite improbability drive is in existence. Shall we name the planet Magrathea?
I once managed a junior programmer who would insist that the compiler had a bug in it when she couldn't get her program to work.
We eventually fired her.
Why do I mention this? Because, as a programmer, when I get results I don't expect, I tend to assume that I have made a mistake somewhere. I don't assume that the underlying theory of how computers work is in error.
Are they even sure that they're looking at a planet? My first assumption would be that they are not seeing what they think they were seeing, rather than there is a flaw in the theory of orbital dynamics.
I'm not being accusatory here, just skeptical.
Proverbs 21:19
Dammit .... I tried to mod you "funny" and hit "troll" by accident. Now I have to comment in order to undo that mod, which also undoes all the other mods I've made in this thread.
Note to Slashdot admins: A DROPDOWN BOX IS A VERY VERY STUPID MECHANISM FOR MODERATION. That is all.
True, but the other question, the one not often asked, how many similarly unlikely occurrences could we see, that we haven't? It may be likely that we see one similarly unlikely event every few dozen planets.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
shouldn't "hot" be replaced with "heavy", and "cold" be replaced with "light"?
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Or the fourth option: God dun it!
Maybe we should give this one to the guys over at the Discovery institute. Let them figure it out.
Yes, obviously the inhabitants have moved their planet closer to the sun so that they can cook their cheeseburgers by placing them in the sunlight, rather than messing about for an hour trying to get the barbecue charcoal lit.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A DROPDOWN BOX IS A VERY VERY STUPID MECHANISM FOR MODERATION.
Unfortunately not all browsers reliably support the Hot Branding Iron control ...
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Vizzini: Inconceivable!!!
So you are implying that the Slashdot editors are arguably better at creating headlines than mainstream media?
Yes. At least twice as good, as a matter of fact.
So.. 400 years of orbital mechanics thrown out from a sample of... one?
Maybe what they are seeing is the Fleet of Worlds. Instead of one planet, there are eight of them, which means that they are actually orbiting on an 8 day schedule instead of 1. That would place them much farther out from the sun.
Or else it is protected by a simple warp field.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Perhaps we've stumbled across this planet during the last million years of its billion year life-cycle. Sounds like a one in a thousand chance that we'd do that. But the summary says that over 370 exo-planets[1] have been found ... so (waves hands as if doing actual math) its about a 1 in 3 chance that one of the planets we've found so far will be in some one in a thousand situation.
Wait until Kepler starts kicking in a few thousand more exo-planets to the database. Then we'll see even more "impossible" situations.
[1] http://exoplanets.org/ says the current tally is just 358
Actually, I believe the final option is always something to the effect of "It's orbit was influenced by CowboyNeal's weight."
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
These planets were used as some kind of Precursor dump. If we find more, we might be able to form a pattern out of them.
That's because that question is irrelevant. The important question is how unlikely is *this* scenario. Based on that, you decide how much you should worry about seeing it. Just like when a different, probably unrelated, weirdness appears, you worry about that separately. If the weird behaviors aren't correlated, you shouldn't try to treat them as if they are.
we need to fire up the smelloscope and figure out if this WASP smells like the rest!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Maybe they reproduced.
"sudo rm -rf your-face"
That's because the question is irrelevant. The question you need to ask is, "How unlikely is this scenario that I'm seeing now?" From that, you decide how much to worry about your models. There are weird things about every planet, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about explaining the unrelated weirdnesses elsewhere. If the behavior isn't correlated, you ought not treat them as if they were.
While I'm not a big fan of grammar Nazism, I'm a big fan of shooting myself in the foot. Please apply the following to my above comment: s/it's/its.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Al Gore: This proves that global warming exists, and is caused by man!
Internet Journalist: Al Gore claims that he invented Wasp-18b.
GW Crowd: Al Gore, the inventor of the internet, claims that man created Wasp-18b.
Slashdot: Al Gore crates the innernet.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Actual headings
Fox News: Astronomers Discover New, Fast-Moving Planet
MSNBC: Newfound planet may plunge to fiery doom
CNN: Edward Kennedy 1932-2009 (sorry, CNN's science section didn't have any science)
Ironically, Fox had the only rational headline
I absolutely thank you for that laugh, I needed it. One of the best humor posts I've seen on slashdot.
Actually some random freak occurrence that could knock a gas giant out of place and happened within the tiny frame of time that we are looking seems much less likely than that we got it wrong.
Time will tell though... and more close orbiting exoplanets.
It's almost certain that the journalists never talked to the scientists at all... Nature comes out weekly and there is an embargoed press release that is sent out to media outlets with a short synopsis/blurb of this weeks articles. Science journalists look it over and see whether there is anything particularly cool for the science section this week (i.e. nothing too abstract like particle physics) and then write up something quick for that weeks science section often just based on the press release (they may or may not read the actual article, which are often aimed at specialists and can be a difficult read at times). Longer form articles in the week-end paper usually include actually contacting the guys who did the study, but if there is no direct quote from the actual scientist who wrote the paper in the newspaper story then chances are high there was no scientist-journalist contact at all, and chances are almost as high that the journalist did not read the actual study, just the press release from Nature (after all the study was just published today).
Ebert: I find Norbit "Impossible". It should have been devoured by Wasp-18 years ago, but Eddie Murphy's unstable ego has miraculously kept it on Blockbuster shelves and Netflix queues.
Note to Slashdot admins: A DROPDOWN BOX IS A VERY VERY STUPID MECHANISM FOR MODERATION. That is all.
Yea! Why isn't it command-line based like other good user interfaces?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Everyone knows that the universe will only last another 6000 years!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
It's not presumptuous at all. The just found something that is not expected within our current understanding of how orbital mechanics work.
So either the finding is wrong. Like bad data, or equipment, or are understanding of orbital mechanics changes a little.
I hope it means are understanding of orbital mechanics change, because when ever our understanding changes, lots of cool new discoveries usually follow.
Or if you RTFA, you can find out that there is another possibility. Basically that it spiraled inward and we just got lucky and say it during it's brief existence.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Our understanding of the tidal interactions between planets and stars, which is the basis of the expected orbital decay, requires rather more levels of inference and are based on considerably more tenuous data.
Such as the tides anyone can see if they go to the beach, or the absurdly precise measurements that have been made of the moon's orbit (it's speeding up and getting farther away: the earth rotates faster than the moon orbits, so the tides are speeding it up (and slowing the earth's rotation))?
Is the question relevant? your not clear on that point~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's only a model.
Can we get an actual scientist to talk about this instead of the freaking LA Times, and Yahoo news? What does space.com say about this thing? There are possibilities that the article doesn't mention. It could have been an interstellar body that wandered by and got pulled in recently. Or on a more radical shift of thought, it could be non-human intelligences, causing this phenomenon for whatever reasons. Whether you believe aliens visit Earth, or not, anything could exist at that range. There's the possibility that the body is composed of an element we've never seen before with properties we don't know about. All sorts of things could be going on here. Its stupid, and illogical to get people riled up saying stuff like 'We fudged up Orbital Dynamics! Adjust your worldview of the universe at large!'
Yeah, this is one of the most befuddling things about the online news organizations. They combine tech & science. Now, these seem to be comparable, similar topics. However, in practice, tech devolves into what commercial entity can push their tech product the most. When I go to Tech & Science, I don't want articles about Twitter and Facebook, but that is inevitably what I get.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I ahve never been to France, but I know it exists.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not exactly.
The quote I was responding too suggested the event was so unlikely that it makes our current model suspect.
However, if there are 100,000 different things that are likely to be observed in 1 planet in a million, that, if observed significantly more frequently, would damage the model, then we can expect to observe one of these things in about 1 planet in 10.
Suddenly, observing one in the first 10 planets doesn't seem like such a model killer.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't study/analyze it and try to find flaws, I'm just saying it isn't necessarily going to break the theories because it's unlikely. It seemed to me a couple comments simply jumped the gun.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Sounds like this might be a chance for a reevaluation of Newtonian Gravity and General Relativity.
Since that's a lot of work, perhaps we should chalk it up to a Halo of Dark matter just outside this planet's orbit which is holding it back from falling into that star.
(Or perhaps a whole bunch of Dark Energy between the planet and star holding it up)
but that would be be, in a way, admitting defeat. i'm obviously defeated, but am too hurt by how difficult the whole thing has been to admit that. instead, i'll live with occasional comment barbs like yours to egg me on to get the f***ing thing done already
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You just forgot the dimension of time!
What I mean is, that you say that the planet should be consumed in less than a million years. Well, what if it simply got closer right now, and just started to get consumed. So we will see it being consumed in less than a million years. And the theory still is correct.
Just wait and see... after all it's just a million years. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
They usually get 2 or 3 chances to hone a good headline.
sudo mod parent +1 insightful
password: **********
modding.... [35%]
A planet "spiralling into the sun" would be remarkably rare to begin with - it would require a close pass between start systems or somehting equally energetic. This planet has been around at least a billion years, but would die in a million (by current theory), for each case of this remarkable rare event that has happened in the past billion years, there's only a 1 in 1000 chance it would be observable now. We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work. Rare events are possible, but handwaving away anomalous data as "just unlikely" is really bad science.
Meanwhile, Venus is still sitting right next door and stubbornly not rotating. Something is off with our models, for sure.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The planet will remains for more time.
It just does not burn because turning so FAST around of the sun, it is is cooled by the wind.
Information technology means all information.
Wasn't there a model that said gas giants that formed in the far reaches of a star system would slowly migrate inwards, wiping out all of the rocky planets in closer orbits as it passes by? We may very well be seeing the last of the gas giants (think our Neptune) knocking at death's door.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
When it reaches the corona, I want to bring popcorn. The denser solar atmosphere should massively increase the orbital deceleration, and I think it's going to be _spectacular_. Considering the amount of radiation that thing is going to put out in such a cataclysmic event, we should be able to microwave the corn from lightyears away. It'll be as amazing as a more distant supernova, and we should be able to watch it happen in far more detail with time to focus the bigger cameras and telescopes.
What sun?
A Klempere rosette isn't gravitationally bound to a star; only mutually. In essence, they're orbiting each other (their common barycenter). That's the reason the Puppeteers created their "Fleet of Worlds": Their own industrial heat generation warmed their homeworlds well enough that they neither needed solar energy, nor desired it. In other words, they solved their version of anthropogenic global warming, not by reducing anthropogenic (puppeteerogenic?) heat, but by moving away from their sun. The planetary heat budget settles back into equilibrium. Problem solved.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Or Venus. Still not rotating. Still unexplained. It's taunting us.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago"
Could it be possible that the age estimates are grossly over-exaggerated? Could it be possible that the creationist scientists were right all along? This fits their model much better than the evolutionary model scientists. Surprisingly, even Scientific America has claimed that the "big-bang" theory isn't plausible (March 2003).
A year on this planet is less than an earth day. Sounds about right to me.
Or perhaps it started out as a much bigger planet than it is now?
...the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did. Or perhaps these astronomer should consider buying lottery tickets. Unlikely != impossible.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Any Gallifreyan worth his salt knows that Impossible Planets are held in orbit by a super-strong gravitational well generated by the ancient evil daemonic entity imprisoned within. Geesh.
The old design had a separate button you had to click to apply the moderation. Yet another example of how the new design actually decreased the usability of the site.
...there's only a 1 in 1000 chance it would be observable now. We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work.
That's not how it works. Suppose I pick a number between 1 and 1000 at random. Then, suppose I roll a 1000 sided die. Odds are 1 in 1000 that those numbers will match, but that doesn't mean I can't roll the die and match those two numbers with less than 1000 throws. I might match the numbers on the very first throw! It just means I probably shouldn't bet my retirement on matching those numbers on any given throw.
Similarly, if the odds of discovering a planet such as Wasp18b are 1 in 1000, that doesn't mean that, "we've found less than 1000 planets, so we couldn't possibly have found such a planet yet." It just means that if I observe 1000 planets, most likely only one of them will be like Wasp18b. It could be the first one I observe, the 99th, the 1000th or any one in between.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Or perhaps our assumptions about planet and star formation timelines are wrong... they said they think they all form at the same time. What if that isn't the case?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It can be, I suppose...if you were clever and/or determined enough, you might be able to figure out a way to moderate via wget or "telnet slashdot.org 80" and enter the HTTP commands by hand (I don't have mod points right now, or I would try it).
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
The tides warp the planet's orbit by transferring kinetic energy into heat energy. The same thing is happening with the Earth/moon system- imagine how much energy exists in waves on your favorite beach. That energy is siphoned off of the moon's momentum!
[creationist mode] Ha! So now even scientists admit that "orbital dynamics" is a fraud! The Earth really is flat and the center of the universe! AND TO MAKE MY POINT EVEN BETTER, I'LL PUT IT IN ALL CAPS!!!!! [/creationist mode]
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Our understanding of physics wasn't "wrong" with Newton. It was just high-level models that broke down in special cases. Same thing here. It's still very useful.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Which solar system is this Venus in? The one I know is odd, but it still rotates. It just takes longer to rotate on its axis than it does to orbit the sun.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Michael Rennie was ill, the day the Earth stood still, but he told us where we stand.
ON OUR FEET!
And Flash Gordon was there, in
EDIBLE.
silver underwear.
KINKY!
Claude Rains was the invisible man.
BUT HE DIDN'T SHOW UP.
Then something went wrong, for Faye Wray and King Kong, they got caught in a
SEXUAL
celluloid jam.
YEAH JAM!
Then at a deadly pace, it came
ON JANET'S FACE!
from outer space. And this is how the message ran...
FREEZE!
"Very unlikely" and "impossible" are quite different, though.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
Thanks, Yogi Berra!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
In the vastness of space, there are countless instances of the "very unlikely".
The fact that we stumbled upon one means nothing.
When we stumble upon 10, then you can start thinking about statistics.
We really need a concept of instance size to complement sample size. For probability we care not about when an event occurs, but how often. 1 in a sample size of X doesn't mean 1/X probability. Until you get a second hit, you know nothing of the frequency.
You are correct. By way of illustration, consider the following. In a bridge game I, as the dealer, distribute the cards resulting in an assemblage of four distinct hands. What is the probability of any single deal producing that particular constellation of hands? The rigorous answer is 1 in 52!/(13!)^4 = 1/53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000. Clearly, it is exceedingly unlikely that I would have dealt those specific hands but, yet, here we are... By the way, this is the precise error that you frequently see Intelligent Design people make when they say things such as: "it would be nearly impossible for a series of random mutations to produce X" which they will often back up with some ridiculous mathematical formula which shows how improbabilities multiply throughout the chain of events. These sort of statements often signal that the speaker doesn't really understand the concept of a priori probability and statistics and when and where such concepts can be applied.
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
Or all the planets 1 through 1000.
The point is that the odds of the next being the "one in a thousand" aren't affected by the results of the previous one.
Absolutely insightful. Too bad that most people don't understand probability and expectation very well. In fact, unlikely events occur every day -- for example, lottery winners are announced every day. The fact that somebody will win is certain; however, that any specific pre-designated person (including me, sadly) will win is highly unlikely.
Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain. --Friederich Schiller
Actually, the third option is that our definition of impossible is wrong.
Don't forget to eat a lot of peanuts first...you will need the salt.
/. of all places should have moderators who recognize PP's reference!
On a side note, "Score:0"?!?!?!
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with that analysis. I feel you need to treat each unlikely aspect separately as long as they're not apparently related. The 1 in 10 should only include unusual orbital configurations and not, say, compositions.
That said, I agree that people are jumping the gun. Usually, the problems (if they exist at all) are tiny. The added effects of one (known) characteristic weren't fully considered or something along those lines.
(Of course, it also bears remembering that there's a selection bias in play with these types of planets: close ones are easier to detect.)
No fair!
The /. editor will report that just a week later, and then at the following day, the following week, the following month, and then the following year. But it will only get into front page at the following year.
Rethinking email
Actually this is done to keep things in a neat category so that finding a general subject doesn't turn into looking through a card catalog at the Library of Congress.
This is the same reason that chess news is covered in sports. It's not a real sport but who the hell wants to have 72 subdivision of the news?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I agree with the premise. However, the reality is Tech & Science is a horrible place to look for science. One is better off to look for the news feeds of Scientific American and similar science journals.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I'm no astrophysicist, but it would seem that a decaying planet, or a planet in a decaying orbit, wouldn't spiral in in an orderly manner. Rather, its orbit would become less stable and more elliptical, until it either tore apart from a close brush with its gravitational master, or collided with it.
Perhaps someone with more knowledge than I on the subject could set me straight?
This reminds me of that episode of the new series of Doctor Who, The Impossible Planet. Scientists were studying a planet that was somehow kept from getting sucked into a black hole that it was next to. To me, it was definitely the best episode covering the nature of deep fears. Oh, and if you starred through the "sun roof" at the black hole for too long, it would drive you insane.
I think we can put pretty high confidence in what they are seeing. It's the conclusions that are questionable. Interpreting data can be pretty tricky right here on earth. Look at the controversy over global warming!!
Sometimes, scientists just get a little to full of themselves, and put to much importance on their own ideas.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"However, that does not solve the problem," Hellier said, because the planet's lifetime should still be very short and it would be very unlikely for his team to find it where it did.
Hey, very unlikely things happen. Not impossible by any stretch, and since we're such short-lived beings, we just see a snapshot. Maybe 10K years from now it'll get swallowed.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
"it would require a close pass between start systems or somehting equally energetic."
Why? On the scale of "something equally energetic", I might point out the possibility of a black hole. But, why must it be on that scale at all? An orbiting planet struck by a large enough bit of space debris might have it's orbit slowed enough, that 6 million years later it falls into it's sun. That space debris may even have been a sister planet whose orbit was wildly eccentric. That sister may have already fallen into the sun. Or, the same sister may have picked up speed, and it now orbits so far out that we haven't spotted it orbiting the sun yet.
Then again - maybe the simplest solution is the right one. However long ago the planet was formed, it's orbit was unstable to start with, and we just happen to have found it as that unstable orbit came to it's logical conclusion - splashdown.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Given that it's "only" 325 light years away from Earth, it would certainly be spectacular, as you say. I wonder if such a collision would have any effect on our planet. Of course this isn't due for another million years, but you're right, high-powered telescopes and popcorn are in order. :)
Best "String" Ever!
Actually, I think the headline is perfect. It is succinct and gets the point across. 'Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet' says we found something new that doesn't fit current theories and needs some very interesting work. 'Astrophysicists Find Impossible Planet' on the other hand would imply exactly what you said.
To me, the quotes make it clear everyone involved knows its not actually impossible, but rather that its something that caused a WTF (or maybe just 'thats odd...') moment when they first looked at the results. At least thats what I got when I saw the headline.
I remember hearing something, from a scientist once, about how as you get deeper into the gravity well of a black hole (that is, nearer to it), that time slows down relative to the 'outside' Universe - that is, what seems like minutes for you might be 10,000 years to everyone else.
So, if that is the case, wouldn't it take a very long time for *anything* to fall into a Black Hole, relative to outside observers?
It rotates, very slowly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/venus/how-long-is-a-day-on-venus/
http://nineplanets.org/venus.html
http://www.doub.net/Enseignement/VRML/Exemples/CyberAstronomy/Venus/HTML/index.html
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JessicaBrodkin.shtml
There could be other explanations. . . maybe the planet wasn't originally part of that star system, but was a rogue planet that got 'captured' when it got too close to that star, relatively recently?
WSJ Journalist: UPDATE: Investors Cheer "Impossible" Planet; DOW Shoots Over 100000. Bernanke Cautions, "Go ahead pump and dump over everything, I won't bail you guys out this time".
First off let me say I agree with you. But, as far as I understand it, our abilities at finding exoplanets are generally limited to large Jupiter-sized planets with shorter periods. So... Aren't our results thus far effectively filtered to maybe FIND some of these anomalies that may exist? Why should we be surprised that we found something like this?
I'm no astronomer but...
It could have impacted with a moon or other planet recently and became that large not to mention had its orbit altered from the impact energy
It may have formed a lot later than planets typically do
It may have some unusual sized moon(s) with strange orbit(s) that keep it stable at that distance
I mean come on, there are things that could cause this exact condition. It's not "impossible"
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The planet had to stand on one foot to push the odds up to one in a million.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
This study does demonstrate that either the measurements are wrong or our understanding of orbital dynamics is wrong. Knowing the former is important because it tells us we have to alter how we make the measurements and knowing the latter is important because it tells us we have to alter our understanding of physics. So it's the very antithesis of hubris.
Maybe there are in fact certain orbits that are stable, and others which are not, sort of like quantum mechanics describing an electron around the nucleus. Could there be finite, quantum distances from the star into which an orbit has to fall? Isn't this how the electron orbits the nucleus without crashing into it?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
We're pretty much up to finding Jupiters and Saturns, I do believe. But there's a bias toward larger, closer planets with radial velocity searches, to be sure. The question is (and this is not easily answered), how biased are we?
And even with a strong bias, you have to consider that this system exists and is close enough to find at all, which is a separate part of the surprise. (This also depends on numbers, though. If there are a billion stars with planets near us, then a 1:1000 chance of catching something with a strong bias toward finding it isn't surprising. If there are only 100, we start to ask questions.)
Meanwhile, Venus is still sitting right next door and stubbornly not rotating. Something is off with our models, for sure.
You'd better go edit the Wikipedia entry on Venus then, because it states unequivocably that it does in fact rotate. It goes into great detail about its rotation in fact, which is odd if it doesn't rotate at all.
Well, to pick even more nits, it's not even really "special cases" in which it breaks down. It simply breaks down in regions that the average human being does not normally experience (near light speed, sub-atomic levels, etc.). A lot of our better understanding of physics (among other things) comes about when we can measure things better and/or in regions that we used to not be able to measure. Such as with the LHC (whenever they can get it working).
Similar to the upcoming US election results
That's not a very good analogy, because what they're studying (planetary systems) isn't random. It would be more like if you dealt bridge hands that were all the 8 of hearts - it shows that there is something you didn't understand about the deck.
How is saying "We've come across something weird and don't know what's going on" and "we'll need to rethink our theories and do more observations" presumptuous? If anything, it illustrates the scientific method.
Presumptuous would be to say our theories are wrong right off the bat or that the observations are wrong. A good scientists always leads with a question, not a statement.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Pull out a deck of cards, shuffle it, and deal the cards out in order. Assuming a perfect random shuffle, the chances of you getting those exact cards in that exact order is 1/52!, or 1/80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000.
This is about the probability of picking a point in the universe (in three spacial dimensions), and it landing in our solar system (or at least a ball with the same diameter as Pluto's orbit).
From math professor in college: flip a coin 50 times. It comes up heads every time. What are the odds (assuming it's a true coin/flip each time) it'll come up heads next flip? 50%.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Have you ever used binoculars? Why do you trust what you see, if you haven't been there to see it yourself?
I have to be content to just trusting what I see through binoculars. The last time I tried to go there in person, I got slapped and handed a restraining order.
That's weird, I still get the button at the bottom of the page, and no onChange action.
If the universe is infinite, wouldn't all occurrences of Very Unlikely be rather, um, uh, likely?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Since we have already determined that the origins of the universe, stars, planets, life, etc. can all be categorized under "chance", stuff like this shouldn't surprise us. Maybe we should be surprised when we look at something and aren't surprised.
There is nothing in orbital dynamics that says any one planet has to rotate or in which direction or at what speed.
There's absolutely nothing whatsoever to "explain" about Venus.
There may or may not be some kind of story why its angular momentum is as low as it is, and that story may or may not be interesting. But "It happened to be formed from material with a total spin angular momentum close to zero" is neither implausible, nor unlikely, nor in conflict with our understanding of the solar system or planets or physics in general.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
There's news about chess?
Call me Horatio.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Nervous? Is it going to hit us or something?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ummmm, no. Presumably, we are sighting essentially random plants from some larger population of planets. This is not at all like dealing a succession of highly unlikely hands in bridge because we've seen a single instance of this phenomenon, just like the hand you've been dealt in bridge is a single instance of that seemingly unlikely hand. It's the exact same circumstance.
It's like a genetic disorder with odds of 1 in 10000 live births. If I happen to be visiting the hospital this afternoon and it just so happens that the only child born at that hospital has that disorder, what does that tell me about how rare the event is? Answer: nothing at all. The probability of a single event is not revealed or influenced by whether or not I witness it.
If I see a rare thing happen, all that says is that I randomly was present when it happened. It doesn't mean I should run out and buy a lottery ticket nor does it mean that I should re-examine the models of probability that reveal the likelihood of an event's occurence.
As another poster stated elsewhere in this thread, it may be highly unlikely that any specific individual should win the lottery tonight but, nonetheless, it will happen that someone wins it. The probability of the event is 100%. The probability of it striking a specific individual is small.
And so it is with this planet. The probability of seeing such an event can be small but that does not imply, in any way, that seeing the event means that the probability calculation is wrong and that we need to re-examine our models. I would admit that , if we saw some succession of these events we might be able to say something about the model but a single observation says nothing at all about it -- other than the trivial fact that the probability of occurrence must be non-zero.
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
disseminated?
Your brain is not a computer.
Actually, it isn't.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
While holding a red handkerchief.
Then again, if it comes up heads 50 times what are the odds that it's a fair coin?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
TFA doesn't seem to mention its current mass, and even if it did its original mass would probably be guesswork. But how much bigger could it be before it would become a star in its own right?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And the Earth's. Eventually both bodies will be tidally locked and a day and a month will be equal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Tidal forces should destroy the planet way before that. With the size of that planet and the gravity from the star, the force of gravity on the close side of the planet will be much greater than the opposite side.
C:\WINDOWS>sudo mod parent +1 insightful
'sudo' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
You insensitive clod!!!
Did you actually read and comprehend what I wrote? I have no quibble with the scientists findings, nor did I say that finding a planet with such an orbit is highly likely. Rather, I disagreed with the poster's statement that since we only have a 1 in 1000 chance of detecting such an occurrence, but we've only observed 370 exoplanets, something must be wrong because the math says we can't detect an event with a probability of 1 in 1000 after only 370 observations.
That is an invalid leap of logic, and suggests the poster does not understand statistics. I have no problem with the scientists or poster saying that such an event is extremely rare ("1 in 1000 chance that it would be observable now"). I have a problem with the poster taking that statement and expanding it into, and I quote, "We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work."
That is like saying the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads is 1 in 2, so I have to flip a coin twice to get heads. Well, the odds of getting tails is also one in two, so do you also have to flip a coin twice to get tails? In that case, what do you get on the first flip? It can't be heads, since we've decided that it takes twice to get heads. It can't be tails, since we've also decided that we have flip the coin twice to get tails. Assuming that a coin flip is either heads or tails (disregarding the extremely rare chance that the coin lands on edge and remains balanced there), a coin flip *has* to be either heads or tails, but we just proved it can't be either heads or tails on the first flip. Therefore, our initial assumption -- that given a 1 in x chance of some event happening, we have to observe x occurrences of that event before we can expect to see the event -- HAS TO BE FALSE, which was all I was trying to say above. An event may only have a 1 in 1000 chance of occurring, but it is entirely possible that you may observe that 1 in 1000 event the very first time.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Exactly.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Chance you "randomly" pick a "5" -> 1/1000
Chance you randomly roll a "5" -> 1/1000
Chance of both events happening together -> 1/1000 * 1/1000
Otherwise correct I guess. I'm not buying any of these calculations, however. 1 in a 1000 chance to observe a certain kind of planet? What does that even mean?
Your statistics are better than your reading comprehension.
The chance of seeing this exceedingly rare event are further reduced 1000 times by its short duration. 370 exoplanets is off by many orders of magnitude from being resonable.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Assuing the coin is fair would not be reasonable in those circumstances. The coin will come up heads on flip 51, because the coin has 2 heads. The idea that you've encountered an event with a 1:10^15 rarity should be dismissed out of hand.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"We may have just witnessed an exceedingly rare event" is not science. The Copernican Principle is extremely important to science. You have to assume that we are not in a special place, we are not in a special time. Otherwise every crackpot idea is on an equal footing with solid theory.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Thank you Captain Pendantic! Everyone else seems to understand hyperbole. Do you also find yourself posting explanations of jokes?
The incredibly low rotation speed of Venus is a huge wart on the theory of planetary formation. So is our moon, really, but at least there are theories there that merely require an unlikely event.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So that's where I parked it... Now where did I put my keys...
>^_^<
WTF is with Slashdot today? Is it so hard to understand the difference between hyperbole and exact scientific statements? The rotation of Venus is incredibly slow - and backwards. It's damn weird.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So... You're saying God doesn't play dice with the universe, he plays cards? Heretic!!
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
It happened to be formed from material with a total spin angular momentum close to zero" is neither implausible, nor unlikely, nor in conflict with our understanding of the solar system or planets or physics in general.
No, that's damn weird. There's nothing else you can point to in the sky that doesn't have a lot of angular momentum, except where tidelocked to its primary. Everything always has angular momentum. Of course, we don't know what the angular momentum of Venus is, only its surface (we know the surface of the Earth is decoupled in rotation from it's core, but only in a geological timescale - difference in rotation of centimeters per year I think). Also, there don't seem to be any surface features of Venus more than a few hundred million years old. Also damn weird.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
...they may or may not read the actual article, which are often aimed at specialists and can be a difficult read at times
Fet me fix that for you: ...they may or may not read the actual article, which are always aimed at highly-focused specialists and are always a difficult read, although at times it might actually be decipherable by somebody who is a less-focused specialist.
I really dislike academic writing style - it is almost intentionally obfuscated so that only those are intimately familiar with the exact work in question have any chance of reading it with only moderate difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for precision and consise writing, but that can be accomplished without the need to make a paper unreadable without reading every related paper written in the last 20 years on that specific topic. Before publishers accept an article one of the peer reviewers ought to be somebody with a doctorate in the same subject, but with no knowledge at all of the area of specialization (for example, a paper written on some gene that indirectly controls some step in the cell cycle should be reviewed by a PhD biochemist who studies muscle fibers). Then, that reviewer should write up a one page summary of the work and its significance and implication, which would be submitted to one of the more specialized peer reviewers. If that summary is not judged accurate then the original paper needs a rewrite.
The purpose of publication is to communicate your results. It is not to prove that you're smarter than everybody else by writing something that nobody else can understand. Likewise, I've seen far too many people nod in agreement in discussions when it is clear that nobody actually understands what is being talked about but everybody is afraid to admit it...
Not in any given finite sample set, which is all we mere mortals can ever hope to have achieved by any given point in time.
Hmm, not exactly 50% ... there's always a chance (however small) that it can land on it's edge. Even a perfectly balanced weighted coin does not preclude this possibility.
Crayons are cool.
I like blue!
I drank what? -- Socrates
they have their positives and negatives ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Our knowledge is bound by observation?
Damn the devil! Damn the devil to hell!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Typical Slashdot Editor any day of the week: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet, Microsoft Blamed for Not Following Planetary Standards.
Curse that </b> tag ... and my failure to preview my posts yets again.
Heh. Good point, he never said it's a fair coin.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
The idea that you've encountered an event with a 1:10^15 rarity should be dismissed out of hand.
Statistics fail. I just flipped a coin 50 times and it landed (actually, I didn't flip a real coin, I used a pseudo-random number generator, but suppose I had):
T, H, T, T, H, H, T, H, T, H, H, T, T, H, H, T, H, T, T, H, T, H, H, T, T, T, H, T, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, T, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H, H (34 heads, 16 tails)
The probability of getting that exact sequence (or ANY sequence) is also 1 in ~10^15, but you can't use that to dismiss my claim out of hand.
The fairness of the coin is still suspect, but you can't use the rarity of the event to claim this.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Then, suppose I roll a 1000 sided die...
Could you tell me where I might get one of those? See, I was thinking about including Cthulhu in my D&D campaign and I figured 3d1000 psychic damage upon witnessing his greatness would be reasonable.
Maybe the way they think to calculate the orbit, size, or even longevity of a planet might be wrong, lending to the assumption that this SHOULD NOT BE. But it is...here is a plain fact...many variables in the universe have yet to be figured out...and many still have room for change. The fact remains, this should not be, so it isn't either they saw wrong or calculated wrong, but which ever it is, we are FAR
from being close to having a good science to judge what is "OUT THERE"!
ps- How about we develop the capability to travel out into space without costing billions each time, and then maybe we can start looking at getting a clue how to calculate distances of planets belonging to another solar system 400 light years away...eyh?
I'm not so certain about what will happen when. The planet is a gas giant: it won't exactly shatter. When it starts losing enough mass, or the mass nearest the sun is heated by the sun to the point where it causes noticeable gaseous pressures, I expect serious excitement.
As I said, I want to bring popcorn to this event: it should be exciting.
Yes, if all you are concerned about is getting a five (or any other specific number). If you don't care what the first number is, only that it matches whatever you roll, then the chance of both events occurring together is 1 in 1000:
1) Chance of picking some number between 1 and 1000 from a pool of numbers between 1 and 1000: 1 (not 1 in 1000).
2) Chance of rolling some number that matches the number from step 1 on a 1000 sided die : 1 in 1000.
3) Chance of both occurrences happening together: 1 * 1 in 1000 = 1 in 1000.
I perhaps could have worded the original thought experiment better, though.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
[:rolleyes:]
It doesn't matter how improbable it is -- the math does not say that it cannot happen, and therefore my point remains: even if the odds are 1 in 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000 that such an event would occur and that we would happen to look at the right place at the right time, it is still conceivable that we could have done so, whether we looked at one exoplanet or 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000 exoplanets. It may be highly unlikely to have found such an occurrence by exoplanet #370, but that is all the math says -- "wow, you REALLY got lucky this time."
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I wish you could be modded by +infty
yea, I forgot it would be mostly gas. Guess it would just cause bulge.
Sorry -- "Your search - "1000 sided" die - did not match any products."
;-D
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Add a typo in the headline of the dupe story, and you've got it spot on...
It really depends on how small is small. If you happen to find a 1 in 10,000 birth defect, that's one thing. If you happen to find a baby born with telekinesis, that is something else. So rare it's never been seen, and it's not understood.
I haven't RTFA sorry to say, but if all they're saying is this would be a rare event, then blah. You would expect to find one of those now and then. But it sounds like the scientists are saying they don't even understand how this event is possible. Which is what I was trying to get at with my freaky bridge hand example.
Please forgive my brash assumption that when you wrote "not rotating", what you actually meant was "not rotating". I can't believe I was so stupid. I clearly should have seen that what you meant was "rotating differently than all the other planets in the solar system." Yeah, that was my bad.
Don't worry that would never happen. The meteor would be traveling at supersonic speeds so you wouldn't hear anything until after the impact.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
What you are suggesting may make it easier for non-specialists to read a journal, but would have no practical value/be impossible. The purpose of these types of journals/studies is to communicate advances in the science/field to your peers not the general public. Having state-of-the-art work reviewed by non-experts wouldn't be particularly useful. Plus it would be tough to find anyone to actually do these reviews if you need to hit a stack of textbooks before you can make heads or tails of the article you have volunteered to review.
The papers aren't written to make you look smarter, the conciseness is a result of the fact that an article published in Nature has a 1400 word limit. So if you want to get published in the top-tier broad-scope journal, you have to explain why your study is of interest to a wide variety of scientists worldwide in 3 pages or less...
The newspaper problem stems from distilling a highly concise piece of work, where every single word has been chosen to make the ideas as brief as possible, and then expecting a journalist to accurately shrink it down further into one or two paragraphs. There is no real fix to the problem, the average journalists aren't interested in keeping up to speed on the cuttting edge of all possible scientific fields and the average scientist aren't that interested in writing for the public (although some are and they will submit secondary articles that focus on the principles of the research (minus all the math) to magazines like Scientific American, Astronomy, etc.). If you want to get scientific info as a layperson, newspaper reports are guaranteed to disappoint. Their only real use is to prime you on what to look for elsewhere in greater depth.
Perhaps, and I have no difficulty leaving it at that, especially for brevity's sake. But what the original poster was reacting to and what I was supporting him on was this passage from TFA:
You see, he said it would be "unlikely... to find it... [there]". That's what this discussion was about. Whether finding an unlikely thing is sufficient to say that we need to re-examine our cosmological models. Even the summary's title is mired in histrionics. The researchers found an unlikely thing in an unusual place and this becomes "Astrophysicists Find 'Impossible' Planet". The point the OP, who I was supporting, was making is that it seems strange to suggest that finding an odd thing in an unlikely place can be construed as being "impossible" or revolutionary.
What Hellier said (at least according to the article) was that this condition should be so short-lived and hard to find that finding it is "unlikely". I liken that to saying that some esoteric sub-atomic particle with an incredibly short half-life is hard to find. If we just happen to see one by chance, though, does that fact alone make it revolutionary? Does the fact that it has a short life mean that finding it, even by accident, would be "impossible"?
Anyway, thanks for your contributions. I enjoyed reading them.
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
Fine, fine, whatever, that just doesn't matter. That's not how science works. There's a small probabilty that any measurement is wrong (more wrong than the error bars). There's a chance that a wizard did it.
Handwaving away anomalous data by saying "it was a freak occurance" is the worst thing you can do. The math doesn't work here: the chance that it's a freak occurance is lower than the chance that the measurement was wrong, or the chance that the theory is wrong, or the chance that the article was wrong or etc. It's not a useful consideration.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
What Hellier said (at least according to the article) was that this condition should be so short-lived and hard to find that finding it is "unlikely". I liken that to saying that some esoteric sub-atomic particle with an incredibly short half-life is hard to find. If we just happen to see one by chance, though, does that fact alone make it revolutionary? Does the fact that it has a short life mean that finding it, even by accident, would be "impossible"?
I like the analogy (whoa, is this slashdot?). If you go looking for a weird particle and find it on the first try, you keep looking to make sure what's going on, not question the standard model. On the other hand, if you're doing some other experiment and find a weird particle that your theory doesn't suggest should be there, it makes you wonder about the theory, as well as the experiment. Kind of seems like this planet is more the first case, don't you think?
At any rate, it does seem most likely to me that it just hasn't been in this orbit all that long, and will get eaten by the sun at some time. As you said, that we happened to observe it during that time frame is really interesting, but doesn't say anything about the planet.
Yes, yes you can. Unfair coins are real things. Two headed coins occur vastly more often than 1 in 2^50. The specific "all heads result" is easily explained by the "two-headed coin" theory, but not a believable result of the "fair coin" theory. The "you're ability to tell heads from tails is flawed" theory is more likely that a fair coin. Aliens are more likely than a fair coin. This is how engineering works. All data is suspect. All vendors are liars. The rational, practical approach to data is to assess the most likely explanation without believing third-party claims that things are as they seem.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Often, when normal people says words like "never" or "always" they mean "almost never" and "nearly always", and that's understood by most listeners. Pointing out the difference makes you a socially maladjusted geek, but socially maladjusted geeks somehow thinks it makes them look smart.
The rotation of Venus is very nearly 0. It will be 0 for a moment sometime in the future as it moves towards tidelock. That's a very strange and unusual thing, right next door to us.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That's not really a very secure password.
What are you talking about? 'hunter2' is a great password!
Given the number of stars in the universe, it's very unlikely to observe the small percentage that is experiencing "very unlikely" conditions.
After all, I am strangely colored.
he misspelled yrn't
Often, when normal people says words like "never" or "always" they mean "almost never" and "nearly always", and that's understood by most listeners.
That is true. However, you didn't say "never", you said "not", which IMO is not commonly used to denote hyperbole. Notice I said "not" as well, and that is just what I meant.
Listen, I understand what you were saying - now. If you had just said "I meant barely rotating", then it's cool. But to come back and get in my face about taking your written comments *at face value* makes you seem kind of socially maladjusted. Or insecure, or something. I just think it's kind of a jerk move that you used words other than the actual meaning you were trying to convey, and then blamed the miscommunication on the other person. Whether you're a geek or not I have no idea; since you seem to have some interest in astronomy, probably so. Actually you're on /. so you've got to be at least kind of a geek.
I think you'd be on firmer footing ponting out how needlessly snarky and sarcastic my correction was, rather than claiming that there was no reason to make the correction at all. I mean, there's something to criticize there, I just think you went after the wrong aspect of it.
When your funding depends on at least having some reasonably accurate models to show, "nervous" seems like the right word. :-)
"From math professor in college: flip a coin 50 times. It comes up heads every time. What are the odds (assuming it's a true coin/flip each time) it'll come up heads next flip? 50%."
And in that situation, would you bet on the truth of your assumption that it's a true coin flip each time? Maybe you hit the ~1 in 10^15 chance, or maybe you missed something in your understanding of the coin. The latter seems radically more probable.
That's the point being made by the scientist in the article. When we find something that our current understanding says should be highly improbable, it might be the case that we just got (un)lucky. But the more reasonable assumption is that our current understanding is imperfect in some relevant way. Maybe we'll do a bunch more thinking about and observing of orbital dynamics and what have you and eventually conclude we just caught this planet in the one short time frame that we could have to see what we're seeing. But the best guess right now is that we missed something that makes this planet not as improbable as we thought.
Or we're just looking at it wrong.
We're only limited to what (and how) we can measure.
hbar/2...
Larry Niven begs to differ, Pedantic Coward:
The Fleet of Worlds was formed to readjust the heat balance of their homeworld. The only living space the Puppeteers have is their one world. The agricultural worlds weren't living space. If I recall, they were populated solely by machines. (Who would be crazy enough to migrate there? And live there practically alone? A sane Puppeteer needs Puppeteer company. An entire extended herd of it. A population density sufficient to content a sane Puppeteer would turn an agricultural world into another world-wide Puppeteer city.)
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
There's a 1 in 1 chance that it was a Pratchett reference, him being my favourite author.
which is totally what she said
Problem with monitor burn-in, actually.
And please, in case you hit the wrong button, include a chmod command!
The annoying part of all of this is that I seem unable to spark a conversation (here or on other threads) on how strange and interesting it is that Venus (effectively) doesn't rotate, in an astronomy topic, but posters are happy to debate semantics all day long. Sweet Zombie Jesus, what does it take to get Slashdotters to talk about cool shit science discovers, instead of "how science works" or "how discussions about how science works work".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I've heard that hamsters do this.
Is it possible there's some sort of link?
You know what they say about opinions. They're all fabulous!
Or all the planets 1 through 1000.
That's right, if we observe n planets, and there are still at least (n - 1) * 1000 planets that are unobserved, then the 1 in 1000 model might still be correct!
That is, even if every single one of the 1000 planets that we observe display a "1 in 1000" characteristic, the next 999,000 we see might not show that characteristic and therefore hold up the "1 in 1000", or we might go 1,000,000 planets seeing it, and then the next 999,000,000 without...
1178161 is prime...
"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" - Richard Feynman
i wish i could stop
The meteor would be traveling at supersonic speeds so you wouldn't hear anything until after the impact.
If the trajectory of the falling object carried it over the viewers (especially at a low angle of decline), then even at supersonic speeds, the viewers may well encounter the sonic boom before the actual impact behind them. Of course it's rather unlikely.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
there's only a 1 in 1000 chance it would be observable now. We've found less than 1000 exoplanets, so the math doesn't work.
Sure the Interesting mod on this post is that it's interesting that people could actually think that it works like this. Seriously, what the hell.
"This planet should spiral inwards on such a short time scale that the likelihood of seeing it is very low," said Coel Hellier, an astrophysicist at Keele.
Oh ye of little faith ...
Maybe we're just getting better at observing our surroundings?
You can find it here: http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=246
It's a little science+fiction, but it's anyway a great reading.
He states that:
"(...) Berkeley astronomer Don Goldsmith reminds us that the earth receives about one billionth of the suns energy, and that humans utilize about one millionth of that. So we consume about one million billionth of the suns total energy. At present, our entire planetary energy production is about 10 billion billion ergs per second."
and also, he suggests that we have to search for a combination of a star and a planet with great infrared emissions:
"Eventually, after several thousand years, a Type I civilization will exhaust the power of a planet, and will derive their energy by consuming the entire output of their suns energy, or roughly a billion trillion trillion ergs per second. With their energy output comparable to that of a small star, they should be visible from space. Dyson has proposed that a Type II civilization may even build a gigantic sphere around their star to more efficiently utilize its total energy output . Even if they try to conceal their existence, they must, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, emit waste heat. From outer space, their planet may glow like a Christmas tree ornament. Dyson has even proposed looking specifically for infrared emissions (rather than radio and TV) to identify these Type II civilizations."
Finally from the original article we see a theory i want to add to this reasoning:
"One possibility is that Wasp-18, a sunlike, medium-sized star, is a thousand times less energetic than would be expected. That would mean it produces much less friction on the planet than normal."
Why this star has a thousand times less energy than it should have?
a 1000 sided die
might be easier to just draw dots on tennis ball.
You're not wrong, but you are being too ... restraining.
True, the majority of the tools that we use, at the moment, for detecting exoplanets are tools that are biased towards finding large planets in close orbits, but that is changing slowly for several reasons.
Firstly, the most effective technique (so far) relies on gravity to agitate the star in the line of sight ; this is obviously biased to detecting large planets (because they have a lot of gravitational mass) ; it is less obviously biased to stars of small mass (for the same reason) ; it has an implicit bias towards close orbits because a close orbit (short orbital period) gives a lot of repetitions of the signal in a short period of observation, allowing for lots of measurements of the spectrum at different phases, between re-calibrations of the spectrometer. Improving spectrometers are addressing the mass biases ; longer epochs (duration from start of measurement series to end of series) of observation are addressing the period bias.
(This technique also has an orientation bias - a brown dwarf of 14Mj in a 23 hour orbit around (say) Proxima Centauri (closest star to the solar system) which is orbiting perpendicular to the line of sight would remain invisible to this technique for a long time to come. Let's call this hypothetical end-case "Sisimen" for convenience.)
Another technique that is becoming common, and is likely to unleash a flood of data in the next couple of years, is simple occultation. This has biases for a large ratio of planetary diameter to stellar diameter (to give a high ratio of occultation), short periods (lots of repeated events to stack and improve the signal-noise ratio), and orientation to line of sight (related to the ratio of occultation). Still real biases, but appreciably different to the spectrometric biases.
("Sisimen" would also remain invisible to this technique.)
The same technique has been applied, with lesser sensitivity, to large clouds of stars as part of the "MACHO" observation project of the last decade or so - I wonder if they have any possible targets that the French COROT satellite telescope is slated to observe?
What other techniques are in the pipeline? I can't think of any off-hand, but I haven't done any research on this, so there may be other techniques in proposal. Which will have their own biases, but which biases will be controlled and where possible adjusted to differ (in detail) from the biases of existing techniques. It is a definite aim to extended the search for exoplanets to wider areas of the "M.sin(i),P" parameter space.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If you assume anything your already an ass and a crackpot.
This is extraordinary event, we won't figure out why for hundreds of years under the best of conditions. So why are we trying to guess a solution with out all the relevant facts?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Some maths
P(n) = 1 - (999/1000)^n = Odds of finding one over n planets
P(1) = 0.1%
P(5) = 0.5%
P(10) = 1%
P(50) = 4.9%
P(100) = 9.5%
P(500) = 39%
P(1000) = 63%
So with n=100 we have a reasonable possibility and with n=1000 we are still not sure.
You say "assuming it's a true coin/flip each time", but I'd take 50 heads as fairly good evidence that the assumption is false and that the coin is biased.
(Assuming these are the only results I see; a 50-heads run in a gazillion flips is to be expected.)
The purpose of these types of journals/studies is to communicate advances in the science/field to your peers not the general public.
Considering that the general public paid for the work to be done 95% of the time, I wouldn't be so quick to suggest that they should be left out. However, I do concede that aiming for them in a scholarly work is probably a bit much to ask. I'd be happy if an article in the field of Astronomy could be understood by any astronomer, and an article in the field of Medicine could be understood by anybody with an MD. Again, the target is somebody with a strong scientific eduction, but who hasn't necessarily spent the last 10 years studying a particular membrane receptor protein or plasma currents in the Milky Way whatever.
For the benefit of the public I'd be fine with any government grant requiring the writing of a 200 word popular science article suitable for a newspaper or magazine. Sure, I know many researchers don't like doing this stuff - they can pay somebody else to do it if they want as long as it is accurate. If they don't want to do that, then they can look elsewhere for their funding - it isn't like there isn't a long line of applicants.
Having state-of-the-art work reviewed by non-experts wouldn't be particularly useful. Plus it would be tough to find anyone to actually do these reviews if you need to hit a stack of textbooks before you can make heads or tails of the article you have volunteered to review.
If you couldn't make heads or tails of it without reading anything at all, then you'd just indicate that the article is indecipherable, and it would need a rewrite. The whole point is to ensure that the article can be ready without reading 300 textbooks. I'm not talking about making articles that somebody who dropped out of school in 8th grade could read - but articles which somebody with advanced education in the general field, but not the specific topic, could understand.
Nature has a 1400 word limit. So if you want to get published in the top-tier broad-scope journal, you have to explain why your study is of interest to a wide variety of scientists worldwide in 3 pages or less...
If your study is of interest to a wide variety of scientists worldwide, then it should be written so that they can actually read it. If a Biologist can't understand an article on Astrophysics, then why bother writing it in a journal that is mostly read by non-astrophysicists. The whole concept of Nature and Science is more about prestige than communication. You'd get just as much communication if you published the article in the #1 astrophysics journal.
In any case, I wasn't really aiming at Nature or Science in particular. But since you bring it up if you're going to write a journal read by everybody, why not write articles that anybody could read?
Nobody thought that this could be a dual star system in with the "planet" a failed star that didn't had enough energy to start burning or didn't had enough hydrogen. I thought that two body in space that had the same mass could orbit a central point in perfect equilibrium without ever touching themselves. If the star is light and the planet has a lot of heavy elements in its composition, than it could explain this.