Extra-Galactic Planet Discovered In Milky Way

astroengine writes "Between six to nine billion years ago, the Milky Way collided with another galaxy. As you'd expect, this caused quite a mess; stars, dust and gas being ripped from the intergalactic interloper. In fact, to this day, the dust hasn't quite settled and astronomers have spotted an odd-looking exoplanet orbiting a metal-poor star 2,000 light-years from Earth. Through a careful process of elimination, the extrasolar planet (known as HIP 13044b) actually works out to be an extragalactic planet, a surviving relic of the massive collision eons ago."

Comments

Old

[Quill_28]

How old in the galaxy again, I get confused.

Re:Old

[__aatirs3925]

She said she was 18...

Re:Old

[magpie]

six thousand years old of-course.

Re:Old

[stjobe]

From wikipedia:

In 2007, a star in the Galactic halo, HE 1523-0901, was estimated to be about 13.2 billion years old, nearly as old as the Universe. As the oldest known object in the Milky Way at that time, it placed a lower limit on the age of the Milky Way

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as there are people thinking that Earth is actually 6000 years old, you will have to endure seeing flack fly around from it.

I am more tired of watching people live and act as if Earth actually is a sandbox for our generation to ruin, since Jesus will come soon and put everything right.

Re:Old

[icebraining]

The Bible makes no claims as to the age of the galaxy, only the age of the earth.

Wrong! God creates the stars after creating the Earth (the latter is created in the Third Day, while the former are only created in the Fourth), and since a galaxy by definition includes stars, it must be six thousands years old or younger.

Re:Old

[magpie]

OK mister picky..."And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also." So yeah, the bible does say the universe was created, perversely after the earth...or am I reading that wrong?

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

Galileo said it best:

"The Bible tells how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

Re:Old

[groslyunderpaid]

The Bible makes no claims as to the age of the galaxy, only the age of the earth.

Actually, it's worse than that. The bible makes no claims about the age of the earth either, it simply says that in the beginning, whenever "the beginning" was, God created it. 6000 years comes by counting the ages listed from Adam down through his descendants. The problem with using this as the age of the earth, or anything listed as created before Adam for that point, is two-fold.

First of all, if Adam was immortal before sinning, then he also did not age before sinning, and therefor one can not infer from the text if his listed age is from the moment of his creation, or from the moment he became mortal. With this in mind he could have been 10 million years old when he sinned and became mortal, thus starting the aging process.

Second of all, There is no record of time before Adam was created. Sure, the Bible records everything that is as being created in 6 "days", but it also uses the word "day" arguably before the Sun is listed as being created, assuming the Sun was created not on "day" 1 when he said let there be light, but on "day" 4 when he created the lights in the heavens. Does "day" mean 24 hours? Or is it an arbitrary separation of an unknown amount of time? And regardless of the answer to that question, if a day is a cycle of light and darkness and/or 24 hours and/or whatever, light didn't exist until verse 3 of the first chapter. There is no record or indication of how much "time" occurred prior to verse 2, if "time" even means anything in that context.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that supports that any of that means light in general was created for the first time in verse 3, or simply light visible to the mass of ocean called "earth".

In a nutshell, if you (and by you I mean anyone, not AC parent) want to try to pick apart the historical accuracy of the bible, you should try to pick apart Exodus, or perhaps Kings/Chronicles. Mid Genesis at the latest. The account of creation is rather vague with time periods and meanings. Some people believe that millions if not billions of years of men and dinosaurs and all kinds of nifty things happened between the first and second half of genesis 1:1.

Re:Old

[groslyunderpaid]

Mid Genesis at the latest.

 
Oops, at the earliest. Maybe I should take preview more seriously. Like, super, super cereal.

Re:Old

[Monkeedude1212]

I was following you right up until 16 thousand years old - where does this number actually come from?

Re:Old

[Muros]

The Bible makes no claims as to the age of the galaxy, only the age of the earth.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. First line of genesis from whichever version of the bible google pulled up for me.

Re:Old

[LordSnooty]

Seems to me that quantifying decayed isotopes in rocks is actually more straightforward. With the added bonus of giving THE CORRECT ANSWER.

Re:Old

[Homr Zodyssey]

The bible states a direct male lineage with names and ages from Adam (at Creation) to King Solomon. From there, it names kings and the lengths of their reigns. After that, events in the bible can be corroborated with records of other cultures, such as the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar.

Besides, the GP said six thousand, not sixteen thousand.

Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

Re:Old

[LordVader717]

The Bible gives precise family trees and ages from creation right down to historical times. So one can easily backtrack conclude a precise date for creation, within a reasonable amount of error.

Re:Old

[Gilmoure]

Yeah, Earth before stars; AINULINDALË and VALAQUENTA.

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.

Then Ilúvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I win sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'

But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; arid they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it.

Ilúvatar called to them, and said: 'I know the desire of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be, not only in your thought, but even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be; and those of you that will may go down into it. And suddenly the Ainur saw afar off a light, as it were a cloud with a living heart of flame; and they knew that this was no vision only, but that Ilúvatar had made a new thing: Eä, the World that Is.

There was need of light, [and] Aulë at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwë hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high pillars, more lofty far than are any mountains of the later days. One lamp they raised near to the north of Middle-earth, and it was named Illuin; and the other was raised in the south, and it was named Ormal; and the light of the Lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so that all was lit as it were in a changeless day.

But Melkor, trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, came forth suddenly to war, and struck the first blow, ere the Valar were prepared; and he assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and cast down their pillars and broke their lamps.

But as the ages drew on to the hour appointed by Ilúvatar for the coming of the Firstborn, Middle-earth lay in a twilight beneath the stars that Varda had wrought in the ages forgotten of her labours in Eä.

Then Varda went forth from the council, and she looked out from the height of Taniquetil, and beheld the darkness of Middle-earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far. Then she began a great labour, greatest of all the works of the Valar since their coming into Arda. She took the silver dews from the vats of Telperion, and therewith she made new stars and brighter against the coming of the Firstborn.

Re:Old

[Requiem18th]

6ky is still the higher bound for the existence of human civilization, which can be proved to be much older than that by about a zillion different pieces of evidence so indeed, the bible gets it wrong from the first book onwards.

And it doesn't matter how vague you get with time periods you can't get Earth before stars unless you are perfectly happy to throw logic out of the window. For you, for the primitive Hebrews it was easy to imaging this nearly infinite Earth being much older than those little fireflies flying above the clouds up there.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that quantifying decayed isotopes in rocks is actually more straightforward. With the added bonus of giving THE CORRECT ANSWER.

Yeah, you really told the GP poster. It is a lot more accurate than....

What was he claiming was accurate? Looks to me that he was not claiming that anything was particularly accurate. He was saying that using Genesis to determine the age of the earth/universe/stars/galaxy is a pointless endeavour.

But good use of the caps lock key. It makes you look smarter.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could, if creation myth wasn't a complete, utter, steaming pile of bunk.

Re:Old

[SammyIAm]

Excellent summary; I sadly have no mod points to give you, only kudos in the form of a comment.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the above, days are measured in the revolution of earth. Has the possibility to revolve regardless of the sun and the stars.
Also I hardly need to pick apart the historical accuracy of the bible, judging by the people who protects it I would say that the world will be a better place if people would just ignore the bible and look somewhere else when it comes to knowledge of history, the way to live their lives and how they treat each other.

Terry Pratchett has written a couple of books with slightly better historical accuracy and with a lot of insight on how one should act in life. Perhaps we should look to him as our prophet.

Re:Old

[node 3]

Rockets? Warp drive? Don't keep me in suspense!!!

Re:Old

[Facegarden]

Seems to me that quantifying decayed isotopes in rocks is actually more straightforward. With the added bonus of giving THE CORRECT ANSWER.

His point is that even if you believe the bible word for word, there really isn't any evidence that the earth is the supposed 6000 years old. Even believing the bible, it could be 6 billion years old.

Of course most of us (on slashdot, specifically) don't believe the bible word for word or maybe at all, but its a powerful argument to say that even if you do, most interpretations are flawed.
-Taylor

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope - igneous rock can be dated to when it erupted/solidified. Learn at least a little bit about geology.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

Does "day" mean 24 hours? Or is it an arbitrary separation of an unknown amount of time?

The hebrew word used in that passage means "arbitrary period of time"; it is unfortunate that the various translators all chose the word "day". Given that, we truly are not given any sort of indication of how much time passed in any particular verse during the Creation. It also helps to remember that this is a vague account of the Creation as told by God to Moses; I hardly think God would have tried to explain (for example) the quantum physics involved in the initial creation of the Universe (the big bang) to a man who was not likely familiar with the basic scientific principles we take for granted today. When a three-year-old asks where babies come from, we don't start by explaining the mechanics of sex and the life-creating biological processes that result. We choose an explanation that is effectively true, despite leaving out the vast majority of actual truth, sufficient that the child will understand "enough" and have something on which to build better understanding later.

At any rate, I agree - if one wishes to nitpick Biblical historical accuracy, it would be far more productive to choose one of the dozens of sections that purport to be actual historical records, rather than one that is (arguably) the most vague.

Re:Old

[HeronBlademaster]

Ack. Why did this post anonymously? I swear, sometimes the "post anonymously" checkbox checks itself.

Re:Old

[Veretax]

You are making the assumption that the description of creation began then, when it may just simply be a generalization, a statement of the thesis of the coming six days (seventh rest) of creation. It would be like if I described my day to you.

Before the sun rose in the morning, i Awoke, and headed to work. I a woke from my slumber shook my head, and rolled out of bed (minute 1). Then i slowly walked to the bathroom to do bathroom things (minutes 2-7). Then I headed downstairs, started up my computer, opened twitter, and email, and began reading the news (minutes 9-25) etc. All of these things were done in the beginning of the day, and the breakfast had yet to be consumed.

See what I'm saying, don't confuse the literary style of how genesis's creation account is presented, with some bullet point list, verse, by verse of the order of creation. Day 1 isn't verse 1, Day two isn't verse 2, It doesn't quite work out that way, even if you try to stretch it. It reminds me a bit of the intro to one of the LOTR moving, when it talks about what happened in the beginning etc.

I call bullshit on that

[Rogerborg]

You get from a rounding error to "ZOMG ECSTRAGALTIC PLANNIT!!!ELEVEN" through a careful process of hyperbole and speculation, not elimination. This isn't science, it's marketing.

Re:I call bullshit on that

[mcvos]

I'm a bit skeptical too. It orbits around an extragalactic that shouldn't be able to form planets, and it's now part of our galaxy because its original galaxy collided with ours. What I'd like to know is: why are they so certain the planet can't have been captured by this extragalactic star during that collision? I mean, wouldn't that be the most obvious conclusion here?

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Sockatume]

I've got the paper in front of me and statistically, you've got more chance of not being a douchebag than this does of being a rounding error. I mean that quantitatively: they calculated the chances of this being a false alarm at 5.5 × 10^-6, which sounds like pretty much the same chance as you being a reasonable human being.

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Sean_Inconsequential]

Agreed! My first though after reading TFA was if the home star of the planet doesn't have the heavy elements you would expect to find in the star or a planet system then could the planet have been picked up at some point? Could the tidal forces of a galactic merger pull a planet free from it's parent star? If so, could the gravity of another star capture the free planet?

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Sockatume]

They actually address that hypothesis:

Finally, as a member of the Helmi stream, HIP 13044 most
probably has an extragalactic origin. This implies that its
history is likely different from those of the majority of known
planet-hosting stars. HIP 13044 was probably attracted to the
Milky Way several Ga ago. Before that, it could have had
belonged to a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way similar to
Fornax or the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (14).
Because of the long galactic relaxation timescale, it is
extremely unlikely that HIP 13044 b joined its host star
through exchange with some Milky Way star, after the former
had been tidally stripped. The planet HIP 13044 b could thus
have a non-Galactic origin.

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would imply that rogue planets can indeed exist, no longer just a postulation of science fiction. How else would a star theoretically not capable of forming its own planets not have one, other than by capture into orbit? (I'm not going to encourage the Niburu crowd, but it means that it would be realistic to consider the very very slight chance of a possibly much bigger thing than comets and asteroids threatening the planetary neighborhood.) Either that or there's something wrong with the known theory of planet formation.

Re:I call bullshit on that

[brian0918]

5.5 × 10^-6, which sounds like pretty much the same chance as you being a reasonable human being.

So there are only 36,835 reasonable people on Earth. And they all live in Liechtenstein.

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Rogerborg]

they calculated the chances of this being a false alarm at 5.5 × 10^-6

LEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JENNNNKINS!

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Gilmoure]

Ah, but is it of an unusually high temperature? Is it made out of anti-matter that can degrade a GP hull?

Re:I call bullshit on that

[Muros]

That says it is unlikely it was captured from a Milky Way star. Says nothing about the odds it was captured from another star in the Helmi stream.

Well, obviosuly

[Anonymous Coward]

The next step is to prepare colonists and use our non-existent energy and technology to set up a colony there.

Fornax

[digitaldc]

This new planet was found in the constellation Fornax:
Fornax was identified by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. He originally called it Fornax Chemica ("chemical furnace"), representing a small solid fuel heater used for heating chemical experiments.

• The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is located within Fornax, and the Fornax Cluster, a small cluster of galaxies, lies primarily within Fornax.
  There are 40 unknown "dwarf" galaxies in this constellation and has ultra compact dwarfs are much smaller than previously known dwarf galaxies, about 120 light-years across
  NGC 1316 is a notably bright elliptical galaxy within the Fornax Cluster. The galaxy is also one of the brightest radio sources in the sky.
  UDFy-38135539, a galaxy which was identified as the most distant object in the universe from Earth as of October 2010, is located in Fornax. It was detected using the Hubble UDF image.

Intergalactic, planetary. Planetary, intergalactic

[Jason Quinn]

Another dimension do it

In other news...

[pedantic bore]

... new legislation in Arizona is already being written to address the issues of extragalactic planets mixing and mingling with our stars, taking orbits that could be used for native planets.

Re:In other news...

[Tumbleweed]

... new legislation in Arizona is already being written to address the issues of extragalactic planets mixing and mingling with our stars, taking orbits that could be used for native planets.

Yeah, we don't want any 'anchor planets'!

What are we going to do about it?

[AntEater]

It obviously doesn't belong here. Someone needs to find the galaxy that this planet belongs to and send it back.

Re:What are we going to do about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

clearly we need more border security. build a wall!!!

Re:BS Alarms

[Sockatume]

The star is part of a group widely accepted to have an extragalactic origin due to their orbit.

splitting hair definitions

[Speare]

When I first read the headlines elsewhere, I wondered how we could have advanced sensitivity by a few orders of magnitude to distinguish individual stars in another galaxy, nevermind planets. Slashdot's headline is nonsensical. I find it kind of hard to think of a star that's "in the Milky Way galaxy" as being extragalactic. I'll even trust that the astronomers' science is right on: they're able to detect if a star matches indicators for originating in this galaxy or that galaxy. Maybe it used to be a part of a different galaxy pre-collision, but I would say it's in this galaxy now, so it's not an extragalactic star system. This article itself occasionally uses the phrase "of extragalactic origin" and I'm okay with that, but simplifying it further actually makes it more confusing.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Sockatume]

You could call it the distinction between saying you're reading an amazing book from the store across the street, and you're reading an amazing book that's in the store across the street.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I find it kind of hard to think of a star that's "in the Milky Way galaxy" as being extragalactic.

Why not? The Immigration and Naturalization service considers many people in the United States of America to be aliens! Heck, they called me an alien first, then a resident alien before finally succumbing to my relentless pursuit of citizenship and agreed to call me a naturalized citizen, as though I was somehow not natural before Sep 21, 1999.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[mcgrew]

I find it kind of hard to think of a star that's "in the Milky Way galaxy" as being extragalactic.

It's extragalactic because it came from another galaxy. If a space alien visited Earth, it would still be extraterrestrial even when it was on Earth.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[mark-t]

Sure... if it *VISITED* earth.... what if it took up permanent residence and were there for, oh, say 5 or 10 million years?

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Pennidren]

What if the alien moved in for a few billion years? But actually I agree that the distinction here is pretty pedantic of the original commenter.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Myopic]

I agree. Similarly, if you divorce your wife and marry your mistress, then it's no longer extra-marital sex.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[GodfatherofSoul]

Like Canadians?

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Chris Burke]

I find it kind of hard to think of a star that's "in the Milky Way galaxy" as being extragalactic.

Which is exactly the clue that, combined with another half second of thought, makes the meaning of the headline clear. "How can it be extragalactic if it's in the Milky Way? Oh, it's in the Milky Way now, and must have come from another galaxy. Got it." Rushing off to post a Slashdot-headlines-suck post is fine too, though. :)

I mean it's perfectly fair to discuss whether "extragalactic" is a good term to describe this planet's state of being as of now. Point is though the Slashdot headline conveyed all the necessary information to comprehend the gist of the story.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Chris Burke]

Do you know how long galactic Visas last for?

Re:splitting hair definitions

[mcgrew]

It would still be an extraterrestrial unless it somehow became a citizen. If a mexican moves to Arizona, he's still an alien until he becomes a citizen.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Anonymous Coward]

But since the star is not born in this galaxy, none of the inhabitants of the planet can be elected president of the galaxy.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[mdielmann]

Just think of it as a Mexican border-jumping into the United States. It could have happened when he was 10, and he's 95 now, but he's still an illegal alien*. Right?

*This may not be the legal case in the U.S.A., and doesn't reflect my opinions on the matter, but it probably reflects the opinion of a significant number of Americans.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[theIsovist]

The reason why the origin of the star is so important is that it came with a planet. This means that we are not the only galaxy to contain planets. This isn't that surprising, but now we have at least one example to prove we're not just a strange one-off galaxy. So yes, it's a part of our galaxy now, and aside from it's odd orbit, it's a pretty standard star. However, its taught us we're not special, which is a very good thing.

Re:splitting hair definitions

[sznupi]

Possible planet in the Andromeda galaxy

There's also slight possibility of observation of a planet that's around 3.7 billion light years away.

(we very much distinguish individual stars in some of the nearest galaxies...)

Re:splitting hair definitions

[not-my-real-name]

Like Canadians, eh?

FTFY

Re:splitting hair definitions

[Belial6]

It is if your still having three ways with the two of them...

Oh, wait... What were we talking about again???

Re:BS Alarms

[Colonel Korn]

Data: There's a planet orbiting a metal-poor star.
Conclusion: IT COMES FROM OUTSIDE OUR GALAXY. ....wait what?

Datum 1: The star comes from the Helmi Stream, a well understood remnant of a dwarf galaxy consumed by our own.

Datum 2: You've been modded insightful.

Conclusion 1: Neither you, nor the mod, read TFA.

Datum 3: TFA doesn't even mention this.

Conclusion 2: I hadn't read TFA either.

Recommendation: Read http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/11/18/exoplanet-found-from-another-galaxy/#more-24148 for a much better explanation.

Title is confusing or incorrect

[data64]

If the planet is extragalactic, how was it discovered in the Milky Way galaxy ?

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[chemicaldave]

If the planet is extragalactic, how was it discovered in the Milky Way galaxy ?

You see, the discovery was made in the Milky Way, as opposed to Andromeda. People often get confused.

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[imakemusic]

Because it's in the Milky Way. Extra- in this instance means "another" i.e. from another galaxy, not "in another galaxy". Similar to "extraterrestrial" - they don't stop being extraterrestrials when they arrive on Earth.

I think Exogalactic would be the term if it was still in another galaxy but I might be wrong.

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[operagost]

Why don't we just call it an "immigrant" star, then? Since this is the first time we're hearing of it, and it's billions of years old, it's probably here illegally^W^W undocumented. I suggest we give it full social security and Medicaid entitlements, plus in-galaxy tuition at the college of its choice.

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, what?

So, does that make an extraterrestrial who lives on an extragalactic planet a exotarerrestrial even if the plane isnt a exogalactic planet? or is a extraterrestrial only a exoterrestrial when it is on a exoterrestrial planet? what if a exoterrestrial meats a extraterrestrial, does the universe implode? or explode? what about exo-extra-galactic-terrestrials? or extra-exo-galactic planets... my mind is starting to hurt here...

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[mcgrew]

There was a collision between our galaxy and another one, and ours ripped a planet from the other one when the two galazies passed through each other.

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[Rogerborg]

There was a collision between our galaxy and another one, and ours ripped a planet from the other one

How... virile of us.

If more astronomers were women, I expect we'd talk about enfolding another galaxy and gently persuading a planet to move in with us.

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[mcgrew]

Well, I'm neither an astronomer nor a woman, so...

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[The_mad_linguist]

The real question is, can we find aliens?

Re:Title is confusing or incorrect

[Coren22]

That is the funniest thing I have read today, thank you.

Lets hope they remember their classics...

[itsdapead]

"Hip 13044b" is a waste of a perfectly good excuse to name it Eddore.

OK, so its extra-galactic rather than extra-dimensional, but that's the closest we're likely to get, and Doc Smith had colliding galaxies, too.

Re:BS Alarms

[Taibhsear]

Yeah that's a much better link. Would mod up if I had the points.

Extragalactic Exaggeration

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like this thing came from Andromeda. It came from just barely outside our galaxy, when we absorbed one of the myriad tiny star clusters that circle us, in very tight orbits.

It has begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Begin preparations...

Extragalactic planetary. Planetary, extra-galactic

[Anonymous Coward]

ftfy

video of the visitor from the helmi stream

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome, immigrant planet! tip - don't visit texas. =) awesome extragalactic planet videos from different news sources here

Re:BS Alarms

[calderra]

Reading it on other websites does make it more clear, but TFA is worthless. Slashdot's longstanding reputation for always checking its sources with the utmost journalistic yeah I can't keep a straight face any more.

Tourists ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... they come, they stay and there goes the neighborhood.

Cannonball Express

[Ambitwistor]

Is it an antimatter planet traveling at a peculiarly high velocity?

Re:Cannonball Express

[Minimum_Wage]

We should go visit it! I just got a new General Products hull for my spaceship and I'm itching to try it out!

Re:Cannonball Express

[tibman]

ah, um.. it appears the life-time guarantee on your GP hull has been voided in a terrible paperwork accident. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you enjoy using our nearly indestructable hull while we sort this problem out.

Damn lawyers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Between six to nine billion years ago, the Milky Way collided with another galaxy. ... In fact, to this day, the dust hasn't quite settled

Damn lawyers tying up the courts for six billion years over a traffic accident. Bastards.

WTF is with all the haters?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Now, you're all experts in astronomical nomenclature? Have any of you even heard the term "extragalactic" before this article? People are whining like the planet has to come screaming out of the void from the edge of the universe to be "extragalactic". You don't like the definition, get your PhD in astrophysics and make up a new one.

Re:WTF is with all the haters?

[The_mad_linguist]

You don't like the definition, get your PhD in astrophysics and make up a new one.

Bzzt. The IAU doesn't define this as a planet, let alone an extragalactic one.

Re:WTF is with all the haters?

[sznupi]

The IAU doesn't define this as a planet in our system, what the definition is about...

Re:WTF is with all the haters?

[The_mad_linguist]

They don't have any formal definition of planets outside our system, what my post was about...

Re:WTF is with all the haters?

[sznupi]

Your post was implying that IAU doesn't consider this object as an extrasolar planet; which is not the case / has nothing to do with any vendettas against definition talking just about planets of our system.

Still waiting for element zero discovery...

[knavel]

Though who knows how bad the TSA will be about mass relay travel...

!extragalactic

[ProfessionalCookie]

Sooooo, exextragalactic?

Re:!extragalactic

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is how long should it take for a planet to become a citizen?

Beasties

[Anonymous Coward]

EXTRAGALACTIC PLANETARY!

Re:Where's an editor when you need one?

[hldn]

just like a space alien found on earth wouldn't be an extraterrestrial being, it'd be a being of extraterrestrial origin..

A "day" in genesis is not 24 hours

[perpenso]

The bible states a direct male lineage with names and ages from Adam (at Creation) to King Solomon. From there, it names kings and the lengths of their reigns. After that, events in the bible can be corroborated with records of other cultures, such as the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar.

Perhaps the Vatican Observatory is a better source of information regarding the age of the universe according to religious folk? I'm sure the priest who developed the big bang theory would disagree with the flawed Ussher chronology you offer. The Ussher chronology is considered flawed even amongst religious communities.

The primary flaw with the Ussher chronology is that it requires a *literal* interpretation of genesis, that "day" is the literal 24 hour period that we all know and love. My understanding is that most christian faiths believe that "day" was used in a figurative manner and describes steps of undetermined length not 24 hour periods. Man was "created" on "day" 6, so events that occurred on "day" 3 and 4 can not be measured chronologically. To be generous, Ussher could at most date man but not the universe; only after man's arrival are "days" observable events.

However I'm no biblical scholar so I'll leave further arguments to the "experts". I'm just a guy who does not believe that religious people are necessarily scientifically illiterate. Holders of such a belief seem to be ironically clinging to a religious-like article of faith, a dogma of their own.

Re:A "day" in genesis is not 24 hours

[stonewallred]

You must not many fundies then. The words in the bible means exactly what they say, except for jesus turning water to wine. There the fundies claim the wine means fruit juice.

Re:A "day" in genesis is not 24 hours

[perpenso]

You must not many fundies then. The words in the bible means exactly what they say, except for jesus turning water to wine. There the fundies claim the wine means fruit juice.

Those who believe that each day in genesis is a 24 hour period are a minority. Those who believe that such literalists are the typical christian are either misinformed or practicing their own religion-like article of faith.

Even in literalist churches not all members agree. I've known people who have attended pretty fundamentalist churches and they had no problem with the universe being many billions of years old, the speed of light, radioactive half-life, etc.

Keep in mind that the folks you see on TV are not there because they represent the typical, they are usually there because they represent the most entertaining, or if you prefer the cynical because they represent the stereotype the producer wishes to portray.

Re:A "day" in genesis is not 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

The word used for day was "yom" - everywhere else "yom" was used meant a literal 24-hour day, and not an unspecified period of time.

That aside, the order of events is incorrect, even if you use a "day-age" view.

The easiest explanation is that the creation story is just a story created by primitive man, and has no insight or bearing into the way events actually unfolded. Any attempt to make it fit with current knowledge is merely to try to preserve the story out of a biased belief that it "must be right" and not because it actually holds up to the facts.

Intragalactic Understatement

[sznupi]

Star clusters are very distinct from dwarf galaxies, and indeed tiny in comparison to...dwarf galaxies. Which are, you know, a galaxies other than our own.

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Unlike Adam, rocks and isotopes aren't imaginary.

Informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

How say this modded informative? I had to Google for WTF the post's talking about. Apparently it's from something called the Silmarillion.

Re:Informative?

[Jappus]

How say this modded informative? I had to Google for WTF the post's talking about. Apparently it's from something called the Silmarillion.

Knowing the average Slashdotter, I would not be surprised if a poll found out that that there are actually more Slashdotters that have read the Silmarillion than those that have read the Bible.

Not that there's all too much difference between them, given Tolkien's own beliefs. ;-)

Re:Informative?

[Gilmoure]

Tolkien was a bit better of a poet, though.

Re:Informative?

[Jappus]

Tolkien was a bit better of a poet, though.

That goes without saying.

For one, Tolkien was most likely just one person. ;)

101010

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame on you! The answer's pretty obvious.

Galacticus Planet

[Dabido]

Finally we have where he's been hiding. Send in the Silver Surfer!!! Um ... let's hope we send the right Silver Surfer!!!