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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."
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.
So do we say that these planets "are" orbiting HIP 11952, or that they "were" orbiting HIP 11952?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Nothing is "ageless".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Possibly they are captured rogue planets.
Except when the ladies ask you that, you say "My love for you".
You are welcome.
yes it is. You can't measure the age of something that has always existed. time is an illusion we use to make sense of the pattern that is our existence.
... 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...
When astronomers talk about the age of the universe, it refers to time duration between now and the big bang. Anything that happened before the big-bang is irrelevant since 'time' and the very laws of physics came into existence after the bang
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
space is an illusion we use to make sense of the pattern
FTFY
By this logic, you also can't measure distances because space could be infinite.
.: Semper Absurda
time is not an illusion at all, it is the increase in entropy of the structures of the visible universe, it is a non-conserved state function
Hey! That was on my last birthday card. Stop reading my mail - and get off my lawn, you damn kids!
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Dude, you've had enough acid. Try the coffee.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Actually I think water is pretty common out there compared to magnesium, iron, titanium and aluminum, not to mention the actinides and lanthanides, which are presumably important for space travel regardless of ones' proclivity for thirst.
.: Semper Absurda
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 !
How high...
.: Semper Absurda
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
In fifty years everyone will look back and laugh at us for putting an age on an ageless thing.
All you have to do is find something 14 billion or more years old and you can do that right now. And pick up a Nobel Prize in Physics while you're at it.
Wrong kind of metal, dude.
Have gnu, will travel.
Here at Slashdot, we take our comments seriously. At the very least, you are expected to keep a couple of dozen brain cells functioning if you intend to post. Proper spelling and grammar are optional, but highly recommended.
Slow down on the bong hits next time.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Anonymous cowards are an illusion we use to make nonsense out of slashdot.
Didn't get one thing: the article says the star is 13 billions yo, but it's 375 ly from our solar system.
I always have thought that distance meant age. Which other technique there is to tell a star's age?
-- --
Personally, I like (as in, I think it would be cool, not I believe the evidence implies it's true) the idea that space is finite, but unbounded. If that were the case (and you could travel faster than light) you could travel in a straight line (correcting for local [and non-local?] curvature of space) and end back up where you started.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Actually, it's unknown what it was like before the big bang.
Like the parent said, time itself did not exist until the big bang, therefor, there is no "before" the big bang. There is no such thing as before time, just as there is no such thing as negative mass or negative distance.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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.
Depends - if the planet is female I'll bet her birthdays stopped at 29. :D
They're only 375 light years away.
Not to snark at you, but Sol is estimated to be 4-5 billion years old and it's only 8 light-minutes away.
But you've raised a really good question...
Off to read up on it.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Nothing is "ageless".
How old is time itself?
Every end has half a stick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence
They can guesstimate the age of a star based on its light characteristics. Our current understanding is that stars tend to follow a set progression through their evolution, and by looking at the current characteristics of a star (mass, heat, spectral composition), they can guess roughly how old it is.
It's all guesswork, mind you, and it doesn't necessarily tell us that the planets themselves are as old as the star. They could be trapped planets from other solar systems that the stars came into contact with over the years, or even trapped proto-stars that never had enough mass to start fusion... current thinking is that the interstellar medium may have a lot of this type of planet.
Didn't get one thing: the article says the star is 13 billions yo, but it's 375 ly from our solar system.
I always have thought that distance meant age. Which other technique there is to tell a star's age?
Distance does mean age. However, the Earth has not been the reference point since the 16th century or so.
Every end has half a stick.
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
But they discovered 13,000,000,000 year-old worlds. That's note worthy, right?
Learn to love Alaska
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.
Didn't get one thing: the article says the star is 13 billions yo, but it's 375 ly from our solar system.
I always have thought that distance meant age. Which other technique there is to tell a star's age?
Distance is... well, distance. The number of light years something is away means that we are looking at what happened that many years ago. In this case, what we see happened 375 years ago. It has nothing to do with the age of the object. However, if we see a galaxy 13 billion light years away, we know that the galaxy is 13 billion years old since nothing is that much older, provided it still exists. We don't really know as we would be seeing it as it existed 13 billion years ago. To see how it looks today, we'll have to wait another 13+ billion years and look at it again.
As for judging the age of a star, I'll take a stab at it, although IANAA. If I recall correctly, there are several methods used to judge the age of a star. We know by looking at what the star is composed of which developmental stage it is currently at. We know by its size and energy output how fast it is burning its fuel. So, if we see a large, bright, hydrogen star, we know that it is fairly young since large hydrogen stars don't last long. We can be more accurate by figuring out how fast it burns its fuel and how much it has left (helium to hydrogen ratio). If we see that it is composed mostly of helium, we know that it is in its second stage. We can judge by its size how long it was in its hydrogen stage before it fused it all to helium.
I have not RTFA, but I believe they are judging that this star was one of the first out of gate judging by how much metal it has in its core, meaning that it is very, very old.
Take with salt. Like I said, I'm no astrophysicist.
What I don't understand is how do the scientist know that these were not rogue planets, formed much later and then became trapped by the star's gravity. Just because a star has planets orbiting it, doesn't mean that those planets formed along with the star.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Don't worry, it'll leave once Alderaan gives up...
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You act like you're new here.
Every end has half a stick.
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.
Time has an age, it is approx 13 billion years old.
Time and space were created at the moment of the Big Bang. Time didnt exist before that, so therefore it has an age.
13.75 +/- 0.11 billion years
(The same age as the universe)
Is position an illusion? No. Time is just position on an axis you can't understand.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
How old is time itself?
No older than the universe. In some cases much younger.
Without the geography of space, time doesn't exist.
We like to think of time as a constant linear, but it really isn't - it's a local phenomenon with large variations. We can say it takes billions of years for the light from the farthest distant galaxies to reach us, but if we were to ride that beam of light, it would only take an instant. If we consider the photons particles, they are very young, and yet as old as the universe.
Thought I just found a fellow creature, then I realized it was not saying "13-Billion-Year-Old Alien Discovered". Sigh.
time has a very concise and hard definition, much more so than this word "mind" you invoke with your vague and nebulous words. Reality is not an illusion; jump from the roof of a skyscraper to the street, and even though you convince yourself some other event is happening, you will die when from the sudden stop regardless. Reality trumps all, and time is a very real component of reality.
... 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!"
You act like you're new here.
They are... :p
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
time is not an illusion at all, it is the increase in entropy of the structures of the visible universe, it is a non-conserved state function
So, does time run backward in your freezer, and faster than normal around it?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
Anonymous cowards are an illusion we use to make nonsense out of slashdot.
Slashdot is an illusion we use to make sense out of anonymous cowards.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They're only 375 light years away.
Maybe the light took the scenic route.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We are but specs of dust blow around by time.
Profound!
Oh, l guess you meant "specks".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
Anonymous cowards are an illusion we use to make nonsense out of slashdot.
Slashdot is an illusion we use to make sense out of anonymous cowards.
Illusion is a slashdot we use cowards sense make to out anonymous of.
Don't try to read this three times fast, or your head will explode.
Bah. If I'm behind you, that's negative distance!
Stupid kids.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Metals in astrophysics referes to everything other than Hydrogen and helium, so they would not have oxygen to make water.
True, but "metal poor" also means compared to the sun, and there are also big variances in the composition compared to the sun. There can be even more oxygen in a star than what our sun has and it would still be considered "metal poor" if it has far less of other common metals. In most cases, what's measured is the Fe:H ratio, and a star can still have an abundance of, say, carbon (like most red stars) or oxygen (like most yellow stars).
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
no, the refrigerator does work moving heat to the outside in time with some of that energy thereafter unavailable to do work, increasing the overall entropy of the universe even though causing a local decrease of entropy inside
Time runs faster in my freezer than in my basement mini-fridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
this process is irreversible, and thus gives the direction of the flow of time
I find it interesting the parallels between this and the "flat earth/round earth" argument. In practice when you are a peasant ploughing a field it makes no difference.. ...but it would be really nice to know the answer.
My personal feeling is that space must be finite and expanding with time, otherwise everywhere would be so full of light/heat/energy from the past that we would all be very toasty - the universe expanding is a way for it to cool off. It also makes thermodynamics/entropy work...
no, the refrigerator does work moving heat to the outside in time with some of that energy thereafter unavailable to do work, increasing the overall entropy of the universe even though causing a local decrease of entropy inside
Uh, yes, that's how I learned it too, so it was the assumption underlying my question. Which you didn't actually address.
Note also that, unless Einstein had it all terribly wrong, time doesn't run at the same rate everywhere, so it's going to be a bit hard to pin the progress of time on the global entropy of the universe.
Not to imply that my question was *entirely* serious, but we do need a bit more on the relation between entropy and time.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Being stoned doesn't make you more insightful than anyone else. It just makes you stoned.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The upper bound on the age of this particular star is 15.4 billion years, so there you go. OK, I understand that it's a matter of vastly different types of measurements , models, and uncertainties, but I think it's funny that the age of the entire universe has been determined to within 110 million years but we only know the age of this particular star to +/-2.6 billion years, a range that encompasses the current age of the Sun.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
My personal feeling is that space must be finite and expanding with time, otherwise everywhere would be so full of light/heat/energy from the past that we would all be very toasty
You'll be interested in Olber's Paradox.
On the other issue, AIUI some cosmologists suspect/conjecture/speculate that the universe may be infinite in extent. (And not by wrapping.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
please post before inhaling.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
Quitting time, infinitely so.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Nothing is "ageless".
How old is time itself?
I don't think that's a well-formed question. It's like asking "how long is distance?".
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
Here at Slashdot, we take our comments seriously. At the very least, you are expected to keep a couple of dozen brain cells functioning if you intend to post. Proper spelling and grammar are optional, but highly recommended.
You act like you're new here.
Do you base that on the claim about functioning brain cells, or the claim that proper spelling and grammar are recommended?
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.
..but where is Tom with the weather?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
If someone were to give me a random rock picked up somewhere on Earth, I'd need some luck to get within a factor of 100 of its true age (unless it were obvious like gypsum with a treaded boot print in it). Some guesses are better than others. Guessing the age of the universe has the advantage that there's several independent ways to try it.
IIRC, the age of observable Universe does fluctuate by about 16 light minutes yearly (that's superimposed on other stuff, of course). The reference is wherever you happen to be. If you move a lot, the relative age of things shifts. All of the observable Universe always moves away from the observer. The Earth is a perfectly good reference point.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Seems like a copy-paste from youtube, if you ask me :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
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.
time is not an illusion at all, it is the increase in entropy of the structures of the visible universe
"Increase" is over time so your definition of 'time' includes 'time'. As Fynman himself would say "you have cheated very badly". Entropy is said to be the reason why we can only travel forward in time, ie: it defines the "arrow of time" not time itself. Although it could just as easily be worded the other way around, ie: the arrow of time is why entrophy always increases.
Time, space and the fundemental forces are what I like to call "miracles", they are "a given" and (for now) we just have to accept they exist because the best we can do with our current level of understanding is describe how they behave.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
IANAA, but I did take a few astrophysics classes in University. Unfortunately this was years ago, so I don't remember it very well.
What I do remember is to determine whether a planet was alone, and its size and shape, the orbital path was generally used. My professor was actually the one who discovered a few planets orbiting a star by the way the star shifted in position over time.
As for composition, that is generally done spectroscopically. This is just looking at the wavelengths of the light in different spectrum's, as elements produce different wavelengths. From this it's fairly easy to determine composition, though I can't be more detailed than that because I honestly don't remember anything other than "I did it", and if I did it, it can't have been too hard.
Thanks for that!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Honestly, negative mass is still open to debate. I saw an article on it some time ago as a theoretical thing ... it could exist, but we certainly haven't seen anything with negative mass in our corner of the universe. Then again, anything with negative mass would be repelled by normal matter and hence would have left the area of our galaxy long ago.
It is difficult for a body not already in orbit around a star to be captured by it unless there is a third body or something else (dust cloud, etc.) nearby to take away some of the kinetic/potential energy involved. If there is no third body then by a conservation of energy argument -- the small body falls toward the star, faster as it gets closer then slingshots around and back into interstellar space. Even if there are "third bodies" around it is just as likely they will transfer energy to the interstellar visitor and send it out with more speed than it came in with. Similar thing happens with the solar system comets -- they are technically in orbit around the sun way, way out there but occasionally one gets perturbed and comes in close -- unless it gets further perturbed by a planet it will fly a practically parabolic trajectory and go right back out to the far edges of the solar system.
Time is real for sure. But the universal constant may in fact be changing with time over a period of time. There's just no way of knowing it now because we all are living under the same constant. If true, ponder that for a moment.
Life is not for the lazy.
It can. There's been at last one reported case of another dimension where Zuul growled its name at the Temple of Gozer. When dealing with the supernatural, all bets are off!
Life is not for the lazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe :
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has confirmed that the universe is flat with only a 0.5% margin of error.[1] Within the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model, the presently most popular shape of the Universe found to fit observational data according to cosmologists is the infinite flat model,[2] while other FLRW models that fit the data include the Poincaré dodecahedral space[3][4] and the Picard horn.[5]
Ahh! So like the sands of the hourglass such are the days of our lives...
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Slashdot is an illusion wrapped up in an illusion.
We can test for changing fundamental constant. IIRC, we have observed the decay of a shortlived (in the order of days) isotope in a distant supernova. We have confirmed that the half-life is the same as is observed now. Half-lifes are quite complex, being affected by most of the fundamental constants. Either the constants are nearly unchanged since these supernova exploded, or they have changed in a way to exactly cancel out the effects of each of them on the half-life. Furthermore, the Okla natural nuclear reactor has a distribution of daughter nuclei we would expect to find today. Again, either the fundamental constants are unchanged, or their change is fine-tuned to give the correct answer. Applying Occams razor, the fine-tuning explanation is out until we find evidence that supports it and not the unchanging natural constants hypothesis.
time doesn't run at the same rate everywhere
Rate is a measure of units per time. Your statement is meaningless, and the fact your units don't match should have clued you in.
Like the parent said, time itself did not exist until the big bang, therefor, there is no "before" the big bang.
How do you know?
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.
I always tell them "life without you is like a broken pencil!". If she's a Blackadder Fan she will understand :)
Pfft.. why must you always think you're the center of the Universe.
Stuffed up your nose in order to escape the army?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
"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!
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?
That depends. I hear Magrathea accepts plastic too.
Can't be the extra body energy just transformed in higher rotation speed? (I guess it would take asymmetric distribution of mass within the body.)
Based on that image, Rob Halford is clearly a Hunter -- he appears to be wearing the Tough Scorpid set.
The amount of metallic elements available is a feature of the gas cloud at the time of creation. How much metals are available determines what kind of planet forms. In the beginning, when the first stars where created, there was almost only H and He. This star is from that age, but has relatively high concentrations of "metals" (non H and He elements).
Because it was assumed no gas only planets could be formed, it was also assumed stars like this could not have planets. This one seems to have 'em, so the current theory on planetary development isn't complete.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
no, the refrigerator does work moving heat to the outside in time with some of that energy thereafter unavailable to do work, increasing the overall entropy of the universe even though causing a local decrease of entropy inside
And that folks, is the definition of a refrigerator here on Slashdot! Still wonder why you don't have any gfs? Seriously though, this is why I love /.
I would have thought 13B years ago hydrogen and helium would be the only things to build planets out of
Nah. The supergiants that tend to explode in novas and produce lots of elements tend to live for only a few million years. So in the first few hundred millions of years, there was plenty of time for heavier elements to appear.
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!
That's a great question/observation. It wouldn't even take an initial asymmetric distribution of mass. The moon is extracting rotational energy from the earth through the tides which the moon itself is causing. So a body could approach the star in such a way that it raised a tide then passed orbital energy to the star via that tide. I don't know how likely this is but I can see it could happen. I'm glad I put "It is difficult ..." in my original post and not, "It is impossible..."! Maybe this is well known and I just haven't seen it before in my (very) limited exposure to celestial mechanics.
No. Pointless.
Also, I think it's unlikely to exists jupiter-sized rogue planets. AFAIK rogue planets are not strongly bound to the original star, and there were never been detected jupiters very far from their star (so gravitational interaction in weak enough to allow the planet to become a rogue).
-- --
According to F=ma, an object with negative mass would accelerate in the opposite direction of an applied net force. It's hard to visualize what that would mean... you try to throw the negative mass baseball and it goes the opposite direction you expect? How would it do that without going through the back of your hand?
Citation on half-life experiments?
Time has an age, it is approx 13 billion years old.
Time and space were created at the moment of the Big Bang. Time didnt exist before that, so therefore it has an age.
Is your assertion still valid in the cyclical universe case, when there was a big crunch preceding the big bang?
Every end has half a stick.
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!
My inner Homer Simpson is hoping for donut shaped.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
...wrapped in bacon
+1 Disagree
Bah. If I'm behind you, that's negative distance!
Actually, that's negative displacement.
Distance is a well defined term, both in physics and mathematics, and can never be negative or non-real.
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Slashdotception?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Since it looks like there is no big crunch, you're question isn't valid; however, if there where a big crunch, then time would end..and then begin again. So even then it has an age.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
F=(-m)(-a)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's the weird thing about our Universe: it so happens that the center is always wherever you are.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
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.
That is one possibility.
So then how does that work In Soviet Russia?
ISR, anonymous makes slashdot out of illusionary cowards?
kmem russian roulette: Aquillar> dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/kmem bs=1 count=1 seek=$RANDOM
F=ma, in a universe where negative mass exists, would probably have to be 'fixed' to be F=|m|a.
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
F=(-m)(-a)
F=(-m)(-a)
F=-1*(-m)(a)
-1*F=(-m)(a)
-F=(-m)(a)
Suggesting that the more force you exert on our hypothetical negatively-massed object, the slower it accelerates. Alternately, merely breathing on it should have the affect of sending it flying away from you at something approaching the speed of light.
Or, one could interpret the "-F" term to mean that we have to exert "negative force" on our object in order to accelerate it. Which would suggest that the object responds in the opposite direction to the force applied - pushing on it causes it to accelerate towards the direction that the push came from, and pulling on it causes it to accelerate away from the direction of the pull. Assume that the old Newtonian saw RE equal and opposite reactions applies to our exotic matter, and that we don't lose anything to deforming or heating it. We now have an immovable mass.
This has indeed been fun. Absurd, but fun!
kmem russian roulette: Aquillar> dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/kmem bs=1 count=1 seek=$RANDOM
Half-life is timed with an atomic clock? Isn't that part of the equation?
some girls love geeks. hell if I know why, maybe my wife was dropped on her head when she was born....
sure we can, entropy increases, time moves forward in any subluminal reference frame.
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.
When science comes up with the answer of what happens at the moment of a singularity, then perhaps we will be more capable of understanding what happens before that moment. Until then one belief is as good as the others.
Mod This!
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/constant_evidence.html It seems it wasn't as distant as I remembered, only 170.000 light years.
Because of the finite speed of light, we can compare half-life 170.000 years ago to half-life today, with the same clock. I don't see how inaccuracies in the clock should change anything? We are not sending the clock back in time and letting running it under the constants at that time.