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Strange New World Discovered: The "Mega Earth"
astroengine (1577233) writes "Meet 'mega-Earth' a souped-up, all-solid planet that, according to theory, should not exist. First spotted by NASA's Kepler space telescope, the planet is about 2.3 times larger than Earth. Computer models show planets that big would be more like Neptune or the other gas planets of the outer solar system since they would have the gravitational heft to collect vast amounts of hydrogen and helium from their primordial cradles. But follow-up observations of the planet, designated as Kepler-10c, show it has 17 times as much mass as Earth, meaning it must be filled with rock and other materials much heavier than hydrogen and helium. 'Kepler-10c is a big problem for the theory,' astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, told Discovery News. 'It's nice that we have a solid piece of evidence and measurements for it because that gives motivations to the theorists to improve the theory,' he said."
The galaxies are ACCELERATING away from each other, and we don't have a real solid answer for why.
Cosmology, the study of where all these planets and stuff came from and how, is still a young field with really big and really interesting discoveries yet to be made.
For all of those people claiming that there's nothing new to discover, point them to the stars and ask how the hell that happened.
And the state of the art is getting to the point where we don't need placeholders to conveniently fill in the gaps.
Exciting times.
The second one is not at all ambiguous. "2.3 times larger" means "multiply how large the first thing is by 2.3" to absolutely anyone. It's kinda ambiguous when you're talking percent, but not a literal multiplier.
The first one is totally ambiguous, though.
"The second one is not at all ambiguous. "2.3 times larger" means "multiply how large the first thing is by 2.3" to absolutely anyone."
No, that would 2.3 times the size. 2.3 times *larger* strongly implies the correct answer (for x=1) is 3.3, not 2.3.
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Shouldn't this be 1.7 decaearths?
Since the sun is about 333 kiloearths in mass, wouldn't a megaearth be about 3 solar masses? :-)
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
Something that was 2.3 times the size of the earth would be only about 12 times the mass of the earth if it were the same density
since it is 17 times the mass it must be denser than the earth, presumably more iron/nickel than silicate rock.
way too much gravity for 'life as we know it, Jim'\
The second one is not at all ambiguous.
If it's not ambiguous, then it's just wrong.
1 + 1.3 = 2.3. Thus 2.3 is 1.3 more (or larger) than 1.
Similarly, 1 + 2.3 = 3.3. I.e., 3.3 is 2.3 larger than 1.
2.3 is 2.3 times 1. But not "times larger". That confuses addition and multiplation.
If the article had said "2.3 times", and left out "larger", it would have been correct.
"2.3 times larger" is grossly ambiguous in at least 2 different ways:
Until we read further, we are left to guess whether that means 2.3 times the diameter, 2.3 times the volume, or what. A few sentences later they clarify a bit, but it's still sloppy writing.
Second, "times larger" is ambiguous in English. If Earth has diameter 1, then a diameter 2.3 times as large would be 2.3. Technically, a diameter 2.3 times larger would be 3.3 (1 + 2.3).
Call that nitpicking if you want, but it's still sloppy writing.
Okay from the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
The sidebar states 17.2 +/- 1.9 M (M = Earth masses)
It also states that the Radius is aproximately 2.35 R (R = Earth radius)
Surface Gravity is a little over 3x that of Earth.
Unfortunately this probably isn't going to be a liveable world. It's only about a quarter of the distance from its sun that the Earth is. It's mean surface temperature is a whopping 400+ degrees Fahrenheit (so yes, paper would auto-ignite there).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Not exactly. A reply I made the last time there was a slashdot article about a planet discovered by Kepler that required planet-forming models to be reevaluated is still particularly apropos.
When scientists say "This shouldn't happen according to current models", they are really saying "Holy shit, this is awesome! We get to come up with new models!".
Meanwhile, the mainstream media hears that and reports it either as "Scientists say this shouldn't happen. The universe is fucked up" or "Scientists say this shouldn't happen. Science is fucked up" depending on their political bent.
It's really a bad stroke of luck for humanity that English is the de facto international language. The English language is pretty messed up in more ways than one. For example, in the English language it's often impossible to know how to properly spell a word without learning it through use and experience. Unlike for example the German language, where you can practically always tell how to spell a word by how it is written.
Gender. As in the blessed lack thereof.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
That's because English took a large number of words from other languages and kept the spelling from the origin language. It's easy to figure out a word in German because the word is German. In English, a word could come from German, or Latin, or French, or Greek, etc.
A little bit pedantic, but it certainly matters as they vary as different powers of the radius. Having 2.3 times the radius would be almost 12.2 times the volume. If the volume was only 2.3 times the Earth's volume, then the radius would only be 1.32 times larger.
Humorist P.J. O'Rourke once wrote that English doesn't just take words from other languages; English chases other languages into dark alleys and mugs them for their words.
Other people have commented on the lousy "size of Texas"-style "2.3 times larger than Earth" bit, but there's so much more wrong with this. There's the now standard "artists representation" header artwork/slideshow teaser that doesn't even have any sort of disclaimer that it's not a representation of any kind of this planet. There's also an appalling lack of any of the figures people really want to know such as what the surface gravity would be on this planet. I'm getting about 3.3 G based on the diameter and mass they give. Surface area is about 5 times that of Earth. The year is about 1 and a half Earth months. The temperature is over 200 degrees celcius, close to the melting point of tin.