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13-Billion-Year-Old Alien Worlds Discovered
astroengine writes "Two exoplanets have been discovered by scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy orbiting the star HIP 11952. But according to conventional thinking, these worlds shouldn't exist. You see, HIP 11952 is a 'metal-poor star and planetary formation is hindered around stars with low metallicity (PDF). This isn't the only thing; as metal-poor stars were the first stars to form when the Universe was very young, these two worlds also formed around the same time. They are therefore the most ancient exoplanets discovered to date."
In fifty years everyone will look back and laugh at us for putting an age on an ageless thing.
How is this news? Sure its uncommon for these stars to have planets but its not impossible. HIP 13044 is a low Fe/H star (even lower than HIP 11952) with planets.
They are going to call one of the planets The Heff.
Can we send the Walt-Disney-brained branch robot Patrick Farley wrote about ten years ago pls
By the time you finish reading this sentence will end.
So do we say that these planets "are" orbiting HIP 11952, or that they "were" orbiting HIP 11952?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
These planets are iron poor, but when they invade us, it's always the water they come to steal.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Possibly they are captured rogue planets.
wtf man dude theres planets for 13 billon years so old omg do they support like that would be tottaly cool what if they had super iq ailens on it
... discovered Z'Ha'Dum?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"Metal poor worlds" - so one of those could be Terminus?
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
not going to make a starship out of water or gases... so to even invade with starships, they have to already have found sources of metal...
this universe is 70 trillion years old, so 13 billion is pretty young
All they have to do is make one. One really good one.
I think there are simply too many things for us to be 100% on. That, to me, is exciting--it allows us to never run out of things to learn about. If we're wrong, we get to keep trying to find out why.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
not anymore, all they are seeing is the light that was emitted by them billions of years ago, the more you learn about the universe the more you realize how little you really know
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I have read TFA on Slashdot and also the TFA on discovery
On both the title of TFA on Slashdot and on TFA at discovery, we are told that the star was formed 13-billion years ago
On TFA at discovery it was also mentioned that the star, HIP 11952, is 375 light years away
If the star is located in a very distant galaxy some 13-billion-light-years away, the star is already 13-billion-year old, or the star may be no more - but we still see the light from that star since the star light took 13-billion-years travelling time to reach planet Earth
But that star is located merely 375 light-years away - which means, the star, if the astronomers are correct, the star is 13-billion-year old !
As I am not an astronomer, nor very good in astrophysics, can someone help explain to me the following question:
Can a star really last for 13-billion year and not running out of fuel?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I am astounded by the amount of rhetoric and vitriol that surrounds astronomical discoveries. Whether or not they are correct, the truth boils down to: we don't have shit for current time observations of anything in the universe. I truly believe that we are on the right path, and models fit observation, but why get so skeptical about everything? By the time we all die, the universe will basically be in the same state. Let's enjoy the limits of our observation, explore and expand them, and then maybe one of our lineage will be able to explore it.
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
Yes, the homeworld of the Guardians!
Being metal-poor these would be just balls of hydrogen and helium. If funny that we can put these in the same category as planets like earth. When in reality they are more like stars and earth has more uncommon with moons and asteroids. All a consequence of how the word planet has evolve from its original definition, those stars that move.
So If "metal poor" stars have already been found to have planets... the odds for many of the other star types might be even higher?
From TFA:
So when HIP 11952's planets started to form, they were actually forming around a comparatively "metal-rich" star for the time, and although formation processes may have taken longer, HIP 11952 was actually the "richest kid on the block."
Surely the amount of metallic elements required to form a planet is an absolute value and not simply relative to other stars at that point in time?
These planets are Metal-Poor because the local sentient-life-form mined all the metals and uploaded their consciousness into machines.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
And after 13Billion years, 5 civilizations came and went on those planets before man was even considered man.
We are but specs of dust blow around by time.
...it's a space station!
Y'know, looking at our own gas giants, it seems you don't need a whole lot of heavier elements to create a non-fusioning sphere around a star. Granted, Jupiter, Saturn, et al seem to have a lot of goodies further down the periodic table. But, I'd guess that planetary formation will work with whatever is in the buffet, even if it's just H and He with a salting of impurities.
Luke, help me take this mask off
not going to make a starship out of water
Why not? I'd welcome them ice-spaceship-travelling overlords. Extra points if it's ice-9.
Every end has half a stick.
Don't worry, it'll leave once Alderaan gives up...
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
not going to make a starship out of water or gases... so to even invade with starships, they have to already have found sources of metal...
Well, if they do make a starship out of gas, the fan suddenly becomes our ultimate weapon.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Thought I just found a fellow creature, then I realized it was not saying "13-Billion-Year-Old Alien Discovered". Sigh.
I believe John McCain is older yet.
... And she was delighted. It's really natural for us to think that the universe is that old, and that our vision of it is like lag in an online game. But there is something utterly satisfying when you show this to someone who isn't that much into cosmic timetables and when you watch their reactions as they try to imagine the scale, and their faces when they realise just how meaningless this planet is.
News like this should really become mainstream. This kind of humbling, nihilistic conceptualisation of our lives and surroundings could, ironically, save mankind from whatever foolish suicide we'r preparing to ourselves.
The system is metal poor, so it can't be Cybertron. I would guess Gallifrey if one of them had been terrestrial.
these planets shouldn't exist according to our current understanding, or challenged what we think we know.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Which in turn adds a new meaning to being blown away by your competitor.
If one has a glowing green band I propose we call it Oa.
I call LGM!
Since these planets could not have formed naturally, they must be artificial. Or perhaps artificially moved into this star's system. Since the star has existed 13 billion years, it must be extremely stable. Perhaps that is why these worlds were moved there - to be a sanctuary away from those star systems that last only a few billion years before expanding into into red giants. A type II civilization could easily handle the energy expenditures and would have the motive if the civilization's original star was getting to a dangerous stage in its life-cycle.
But a civilization that long-lived would probably not tip off existence unless it had fallen and is now unable to mask the wobble that gave it away.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
Quitting time, infinitely so.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
not going to make a starship out of water or gases... so to even invade with starships, they have to already have found sources of metal...
Well, if they do make a starship out of gas, the fan suddenly becomes our ultimate weapon.
For space battles, the fan won't be much help.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Although I thought that was in a distant galaxy.
Still.... it's old enough.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
another idiom busted
I thought all stars were metal-poor? I was under the assumption that once nickel-56 decays into iron the star explodes, and all elements after that are created through explosive supernova nucleosynthesis.
While this discovery is very cool, it may be a very bad sign. One of the most plausible explanations for the Fermi paradox is that intelligent life almost always wipes itself out before it is able to engage in largescale space travel (as so-called Great Filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_filter. One of the other more satisfying explanations is that the sun is one of the first stars to have enough metal to plausibly form planets. That now seems to be less likely. There are other explanations, such as the low metal systems not having enough carbon for life to form and prosper, or that complex life is very rare. However, this discovery potentially removes one of the more plausible possible explanations, and thus makes the possibility of a Great Filter in our future to seem more likely. This is disturbing.
Maybe they are captured rogue planets.
Orbital dynamics and mr. Occam must be at odds today. Play with an N-body simulator and see how it goes. I don't think most people can claim any sort of common sense here unless they've been playing with one. It usually doesn't work the way one would expect. For example, one could naively think that gravity, as an attractive force, will cause eventual collapse if you start simulation with a random bunch of bodies having 0 relative velocity. To one's surprise, then, not only there will be no collapse, but a bunch of objects will get permanently ejected from such a system. Getting things cleanly orbiting one another in low-eccentricity orbits can be considered a lucky occurrence as well. That's what I remember from when I was in high school -- that's the first and last time I felt like coding up N-body (it's a pain -- naive algorithms don't work if you've not got a couple centuries to wait for the results), so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Thanks for that!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
considering most of what they think they know is speculation in itself.
In order for Gallifrey to be as ancient as described in the series, it would need to have formed around a sun of about that age. This means we now have proof that The Doctor is real.
Ahh! So like the sands of the hourglass such are the days of our lives...
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Thats no a planet, its an Excession!
"these two worlds also formed around the same time" There is nothing in TFA to support this other than the fact that they are orbiting an old star, it is simply stated. Isn't it possible for wandering planets to get caught in a stable orbit around a star? They could be only a billion years old. Please correct me if I have made some fundamental error.
"But according to conventional thinking, these worlds shouldn't exist. You see, HIP 11952 is a 'metal-poor star and planetary formation is hindered around stars with low metallicity ."
Therefore - Jesus!
BOSKONE
Not a well-formed question if you want answers but an extremely well-formed question* if you want to think :)
* Sometimes called a koan.
So, what they are saying is that scientist don't know everything? Color me surprised!
These are not alien worlds but mine! I claimed them many years ago, and I'm not an alien, legal or illegal.
welcome our new "HIP 11952"-'ster overlords.
Wait, that doesn't make any sense! Who would welcome a HIPster?
The planet Mitt Romney thinks Jesus flew to after having been dead for three days to meet up with himself!! (God)!! It was prophesied by stoned Mormon sages WAY back in the 19th century, but none of us truly believed it was possible!! But it is er... was!!! And God (all three of them) is there and Mary and all the Elves and I'm flying there tomorrow....on JetBlue!
it will when it's spinning blades hit the gas.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I understand that it helps but I don't see why would it be a requirement. The first stars formed just well without any heavy elements and gas giants are like starts just smaller.
"Two exoplanets have been discovered by scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy orbiting the star HIP 11952."
My initial reaction: "Wow, the scientists at the Max-Plank Institute are orbiting some other star!!!1"
Sentence structure matter! A better alternative is:
"Two exoplanets have been discovered orbiting the star HIP 11952 by scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy."
Or use commas to insert an interjection:
"Two exoplanets have been discovered, by scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, orbiting the star HIP 11952."
Both small changes, but it's much more clear which subject the verb is referring to.
Posting as AC since I already moderated...
Thirteen billion years is plenty of time for a star to lose a companion, it could well have been part of a binary (or more) system in the past. The lack of orbital eccentricity probably argues against it, but I've not played around with N-body math so could easily be wrong.
I have not thought about losing a companion, of course, but if you're right that a binary system is pretty much a prerequisite for any sort of a rogue capture, if that's what you mean.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
It states planets are black dwarfs and, most likely there was no Big Bang.
Presented from alleged troll Bill Gaede.