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Exoplanet Has Showers of Pebbles
mmmscience writes "The newly-discovered exoplanet COROT-7b has an unusual form of precipitation: rocks. Because it orbits so close to its sun, the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot enough for rocks to vaporize — not unlike water evaporating on Earth. And, like Earth, when the vapor cools in the upper atmosphere, it forms clouds and begins to rain. But instead of water, COROT-7b gets a shower of pebbles."
That's pretty cool, in a geeky sort of way.
I wish I could see it... but I don't think the environment would be terribly friendly to my sensitive skin.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
We get solid precipitation here on earth all the time.
Sometimes it's hail, sometimes sleet.
The best is frogs, though.
Neato
This is a hypothesized event. The evidence for it is slim based primarily on modeling. While this is really cool if correct, one needs to understand that this isn't by any means a slam dunk.
This is just like on the Flintstones, where everything is made out of stone -- because it's the Stone Age, silly! Further research will reveal the pterodactyl airplanes, I'm sure.
"the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit." For anyone using the SI, this is about 2327 degrees Celsius
Just like the earth has water vaporizing from the oceans instead of salt, I would assume there would be an equivalent there. Since oxides and silicates tend to melt and vaporize at temperatures higher than metallic elements, it might be metallic rain. Which cooling and falling would end up a very unpleasant form of shrapnel.
It was on HBO a while ago! The planet is Crematoria. duhh..!
US Fidelis is setting up its new headquarters here for all the car warranty repairs they'll get from the new space colony there.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
So, do we send the religious fundamentalists there, or what?
Given that different material will have different melting temperatures, that should lead to the different metals coalescing at different heights. At sunset, there ought to be a layering affect as the last rocks fall back to the surface, a rock rainbow in effect. Of course, it probably won't last long with the whole planet being molten.
Be relentless!
Having parked under a tree during a hailstorm, how is this different from something as solid as hail raining down on you?
Ice is pretty solid and it's created by pretty much the same phenomenon as the pebbles in this planet. All you need is a temperature range between solid to gas of a substance and a rotation speed slow enough to cool the other side by radiation.
But I'm not going to shout down any scientist who's spent enough time to measure the spectra, do the math about temperatures and conclude this ... because science is good.
So, rock ON! :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
And I thought we had hard water!
Teacher: Why are you late?
Student 1: I was throwing pebbles in the pond.
Teacher: (to student #2) Why are you late?
Student 2: I was throwing pebbles in the pond.
Teacher: (to student #3) Let me guess - you were throwing pebbles in the pond too?
Student 3: I'm Pebbles.
It is nearly impossible to imagine a deluge of pebbles falling from the sky, or turning on the morning forecast to hear reports of "rocking" instead of "raining."
Oh I can imagine it. You see dark clouds roll in, crowding around. In the distance but growing louder, the rapid heavy percussion of the rock shower begins. Then in the cloud at the front, you see a flash of light and a shower of sparks like a pyrotechnic burst. Seconds later, instead of a crash of thunder, you hear the wail of an electric guitar.
It is now rocking. Rocking hard core.
This is the awesomest planet ever.
The enemies of Democracy are
Having read TFA, I am interested why the authors hypothesise that the precipitation is as solid rocks. Intuitively, it would make more sense that it would be in a liquid phase (while I have no idea of what pressures would exist on the planet, and am no geologist, liquid rocks seem to exist across temperature ranges in excess of 100's of degrees here on earth.) Admittedly, the article does seems to imply that there is no rotation of the planet, and thus gaseous rock migrating to the super-cold side might (possibly) precipitate rapidly. In fact, would this imply that there is a large scale migration of rock from the sunward side of the planet to that opposed to the sun (and would this in turn alter the fundamental planet shape? I envisage dinnerplate planets...)
ROCKS FALL! EVERYONE DIES!
At what temperature do cats and dogs vaporize ?
That has happened on Earth too. We call it Fallout.
I am not kidding. A surface nuclear burst in the megaton range will vaporize millions of tons of rock and soil. This material will cool, condense, and and fall as
little pebbles or hail. In this case, it's radioactive, but otherwise the physics is the same.
hrmm, I knew this tritanium umbrella will come in handy one day
seems like a good place for stone base life forms to develop
Very hot.
Meanwhile on COROT-7b scientists find a new planet so cold that water would actually create "oceans" on the surface , and even freeze at the poles.
They laugh at the though ever existing on that planet.
Cruise TT
My first reaction was that this (assuming the theory is correct) is about as cool of a discovery - concept I've read about in a long time. At the same time it brings to point a thought that one of the problems with popular Sci-Fi is that it misses on potential of "stuff" "out-there" (space) being wilder and different (including life) than we've yet to imagine.
If you consider the variety of habitats that we find life in our tiny part of the cosmos (Earth) and that life keeps being discovered in more and bizarre places (by human standards) when you extrapolate that out, I tend to think it may be literally beyond our imagination.
If we, by whatever means, met intelligent life, would we be able to communicate; sure math is universal, but consider the issues communicating ideas and values across cultures when its the same species. Consider a collective consciousness, what does the term "I" or "me" mean to it (them).
It is nearly impossible to imagine a deluge of pebbles falling from the sky, or turning on the morning forecast to hear reports of âoerockingâ instead of âoeraining.â
Does this seem difficult to imagine, let alone nearly impossible?
Imagine, if you can, something somewhere else very similar to something standard here!
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Rocks!? Pshhhhh. Our solar system brings the bling bling out when it rains. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/carbon-99d.html
...I hear there's this awesome planet were you can get really stoned...
Duuude!
I'm sure the methane based party animals on Titan also point to Earth and oooh and aaah about how solid H2O actually melts, vaporizes, and falls from the sky as rain, hail, and snow under the tremendous heat we have here.
it's not that bad, because it is a dry heat
For those who do not have a good feel of Fahrenheit temperatures over 100.
Some hyperbole here.
The Castle Bravo test shot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo) was one of the largest thermonuclear detonations ever, with an estimated yield of 15-22 MT. The blast crater from Bravo was 2000m in diameter and 75m deep. Assuming it was square because I'm too lazy for math today, that's about 300,000 cubic meters. Assuming that this was blasted in solid granite (http://www.allmeasures.com/Formulae/static/materials/32/density.htm) you get about 780k metric tons.
However, most of this material wasn't vaporized, it was pulverized by the shock wave and propelled as a solid into the mushroom cloud. The actual quantity of material melted I wouldn't hazard to estimate, but it was a small proportion of the overall material excavated.
Much as in the "it's raining rocks!" planet, this precipitation would be much closer in form to dust, not "pebbles". One of the reason that water on earth comes in larger forms is that the water molecule has a charge, and will aggregate electrostatically. I don't think that would be true of this silicate cloud.
Today... 50% chance of pebble storm in the morning. Evening; 30% chance of magma flood.
bite it noobs
forgot to check the AC box? noob!
the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit.
Doesn't the poll show that most people in the world use Celsius?
How did "post worthless crap on slashdot" not make the top of this list?
Not a typewriter
Minerals melt and boil at various temperatures and at 2,370 C most minerals will probably break down into smaller molecules and atoms. Since Silicon dioxide (quartz) is a stable and common component of various kinds of rocks, and it has a boiling point of 2,230 C, I suspect that the surface is a sea of melted and boiling quartz and that most of the "atmosphere" is gaseous quarts, and that the "rain" is droplets of liquid quartz. Aluminum oxide melts at 2072C and boils at 2,980C, so the "ocean" is probably a mixture of the two minerals. 2,370C is enough to boil Silicon but not Aluminum. http://www.science.co.il/PTelements.asp?s=BP
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Are you suggesting that molecules migrate? Or were they on a strand of crepon held under the dorsal guiding feathers of a European Swallow?
ow!
Best Slashdot Co
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090930165038.htm
...and if you like pina coladas and getting bludgeoned in the rain...
either that or I would need to have a stronger umbrella
What I find interesting about this planet is that it's tidally locked with it's star, so one side is over 4000F, while the other is -370F. That could imply that the surface continuously evaporates on the hot side and condenses out of the atmosphere on the cold side. So the planet is essentially a conveyor belt always in the process of being destroyed and created. The contents of the entire planet could have gone through this process many times already.
Right, Kelvin is the unit. Kelvin is historically nothing but celcius with only positive numbers. IE, 0K is an absolute zero temperature nothing is colder than that.
Looking at translation formulae make it clear :
degree C = K - 273,15
degree F = K Ã-- 1,8 â' 459,67.
The original scientist post states it "a temperature of about 2600 degrees Kelvin (4220 degrees Fahrenheit)." Noting that corot satelite was "launched by the French and European space agencies" we would have expected as in the original blog : source unit (SI country and continent) and then "translated unit" (here the imperial unit Farenheit).
The source unit is the rela value. The translated unit is here to help non native users to understand the value.
Can slashdoters try to use SI units when they make a post putting next to the number the american value (as we are on a US based server) ?
I think this make sense : helps people to feel comfortable with SI and keep people reference with old system.
By the way, citing wikipedia "Only three countries (Burma (Myanmar), Liberia, and the United States) have yet to adopt the International System of Units" ... well Burma and Liberia ... with USA ? Ey guys are you sleeping or what ;-)
Bythe way bis, Slashdot it is realy time to use unicode UTF-8 compatible !!!!! I can not even post the degree sign :(
So I'll ask the question no one else has: Are these Fruity Pebbles?
Or so I've heard at an astrobiology class. Too lazy to check it out..
Cocoa or Fruity Pebbles?
He's thinkin' of a triple-max prison. A no-daylight slam. Only three of 'em left in this system, two of 'em outta range for a shitty little undercutter like this one with no legs. Leavin' just one - crematoria. That is what you had in mind. Right Toombs?
I come here for the love
... since this planet has Rocks and Vapors, Its plausible that it also has them in liquid form...
With such dynamic environment... Is it possible that this planet has life the way we don't know it.
Some really unique life form we can't imagine?
..finding a safe place to park
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I guess he will not be wearing a jacket either.
does it rain Linux?
Table-ized A.I.
I always though that communication with alien life forms would be *far* more difficult that we expect.
we cannot even communicate with insects, which would have a far simpler language than a sentient alien.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I got a shower from Pebbles one time. It cost $200. Pebbles was a stripper.
I don't even know if that qualifies as coincidental...
What does 'Pebbles' got to do with anything ?
... this is your library on Congress... any questions?
Remember to park car in garage when visiting exoplanets.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Dan Fogelberg.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
So, basically, It's like living in Oklahoma...
Proverbs 21:19
Dr. Asimov for the win!
To this, let me just add, that low UID trolls are still trolls.
No we aren't. We're "offtopic" which never comes up for metamod, and thus shields the moderator from the presumed risk of modding us down, but does not effect our massive karma. But we don't get treated that way because we're better than you, it's simply because you aren't as good as us.
But I wasn't even trying to "troll," this time. I was trying to make a "joke." "Sorry" to have "offended" you. I just think overuse of "quotation marks" is "hilarious."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
and other things. I think this happens already in metal forges where metals that will evaporate at an lower temperature than other metals in the mix and form a layer on the cooler surfaces.
... a select group of COROT-7bians gather for the hundred and forty sixth meeting of the "Why Did We Name Ourselves COROT-7b, Again?" panel.
Let's sent all the sinners to this planet.
They`ll stone you when you`re trying to be so good
They`ll stone you just like they said they would
They`ll stone you when you`re trying to go home
They`ll stone you when you`re there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
They`ll stone you when you`re walking on the street
They`ll stone you when you`re trying to keep your seat
They`ll stone you when your walking on the floor
They`ll stone you when your walking to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
They`ll stone you when you`re at the breakfast table
They`ll stone you when you are young and able
They`ll stone you when you`re trying to make a buck
They`ll stone you and then they`ll say good luck
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
Well They`ll stone you and say that it`s the end
They`ll stone you and then they`ll come back again
They`ll stone you when you`re riding in your car
They`ll stone you when you`re playing you guitar
Yes But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
Alright
Well They`ll stone you when you are all alone
They`ll stone you when you are walking home
They`ll stone you and then say they`re all brave
They`ll stone you when you`re send down in your grave
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Now if it had showers of Cocoa Puffs...I'm so there.
The rock vapor will move away from the sub stellar point towards the terminator and condense at some ring shaped region. Rock being a solid can't just flow back to the vaporization point (like a water ocean would) so it just piles up. At some point, the rock ring would get big enough to sink into the planet at the same rate that the rock dust is falling. Eventually material would be transported through the bulk of the planet by pressure rebalancing to evaporate again and the cycle would repeat. It might be possible that the rock ring and the void on the day side would throw the mass distribution off enough that the locking to the star would change angle after a while.
Just point me to the planet that rains donuts.
mmmmmm... dooonuts
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The weather there will Rock you like a Hurricane.
Doesn't it rain diamonds on Neptune?
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
Some interesting thoughts posted about nature of the "rain" - dust, pebbles, sand, liquid-filled crusty balls.
I had the thought that if the precipitate isn't able to redistribute itself back to the hot side some how... Well, it *must*, eventually.
So, what might happen - would the pebbles build a pile so high that it covered the entire cold side of the planet, with new debris sliding down the slopes back to the hot side?
If the precipitate were liquid, it would flow down 'til cooling or reaching the hot side.
If the debris precipitating from the sky were "sticky" enough to not flow, even as aggregate, and the pile on the cold side grew large enough, wouldn't gravity eventually cause the planet to "flip over", exposing the formerly cold side to the nearby star, beginning another round of rock vapourization?
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Cheers,
rb
(about the temperature on the moon)
Farmer: Drops down to minus 173.
Fry: Fahrenheit or Celsius?
Farmer: First one, then the other.
It rains food! You guys eat rocks, right? Not even if they're sautéed in a little mud?
I caught it. Futurama. The rest of the lamers here didn't but I did. Where is my free internet cookie.
Here are some links I found to papers describing the software used.
FWIW I am also intrigued about what is happening at this planet. I could imagine:
- tremendous storms at the twilight zone, perhaps mixing in elements from the cold side, or maybe just spreading ash worldwide?
- With the solar winds above and heat from below, it might be like a fluidized bed reactor with all kinds of things being created - all kinds of compounds. Falling gems indeed!
- Solar wind buffeting the silica and other things in the atmosphere, could perhaps create spongy material, aerogels, glassy wings that whirl toward ground like maple seeds.
- life possible? Maybe somewhere in the world..
Okay. Use of the MAGMA software is described briefly in Fractional Vaporization of Hot Earth-like Exoplanets and a description of the algorithms and data used in the program are provided in
L. Schaefer and B. Fegley. A Thermodynamic Model of High Temperature Lava Vaporization on Io, Icarus, 169, 216-241.
Note that according to the abstract of Schaefer and Fegley's Vaporization of High Temperature Magmas on Io "Galileo NIMS observations indicate magmas with temperatures of 1700-2100K on Io. Vaporization of rock-forming oxides should occur at such temperatures. "
Also Exploring the Environment of Volcanoes gives for Earth: 2000 degrees C: Iron-Rich Rock (i.e. still rock even while under tremendous pressure 500 miles underground), and 5000 degrees C: liquid iron
(2900 miles underground).
You may also be interested in Heavy Metal Frost on Venus
and an overview of some of their research here.
There is another program called CONDOR that Fegley and Lodders made, which is described on their site. (See condor2.html for algorithm info.) This program is for gaseous atmospheres.
Yabba Dabba Doo!
Evolution will progress from the Stone Age to the Stone Age to the Stone Age.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
If the jetstream changed and the temp changed by an order of magnitude in either direction.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
... if the surface is made of manure, it evaporates, condenses and comes down as...?
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Ahh. Thank you but- we certainly shan't grovel for your gravel!
WE DO NOT WANT IT IT!
But, Earthing- thanks for the hint about your exoplanet (whatever that is)
Perhaps we'll look them over...
.
- aqk
F U