Stellar Rejuvenation: Some Exoplanets May Get Facelifts

astroengine writes: Astronomers may have discovered an exoplanet that has found the elixir to planetary youth, knocking billions of years off its age. Until now, stellar rejuvenation has been pure conjecture, but after studying a white dwarf star called PG 0010+280, it turns out that one very interesting explanation for an excess in detected infrared radiation may be down to the presence of an exoplanet that was given a facelift. "When planets are young, they still glow with infrared light from their formation," said Michael Jura of the University of California, Los Angeles, co-author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal. "But as they get older and cooler, you can't see them anymore. Rejuvenated planets would be visible again." This rejuvenation happens when stellar material shedding from a dying red giant star falls onto an exoplanet, causing heating and making it appear younger.

Comments

More bad science journalism

[dreamchaser]

This just in: old, cool planets get hotter when their stars begin to die and dump hot stellar matter on them. No aspect of this is 'rejuvenation'.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

you should get rid of those 'old planet' wrinkles.

why? because you're worth it.

Re:More bad science journalism

[gstoddart]

Really? So, in theory, a planet could change from not being detected by our current techniques to detected by them, and that isn't "rejuvenation"?

Nobody is saying it's Oil of Olay, but in terms of the observability of these planets, I think it's a fair term.

In theory, a star could belch, and suddenly if you checked against previous data you'd find new planets. Because suddenly they glow. That in and of itself is mindboggling in terms of the probability of finding it.

As much as it's a big-ass sky, we're kind of at a point where we can see the kind of things which have timescales in the thousands or millions of years ... only we might be lucky enough to see them and say "holy cow, that planet looks new because it got heated by its sun and we never thought of that".

And the difference from 25 years ago is almost beyond comparison, and even the wildest dreams people had back then. Because even the basic idea of any of this stuff was bordering on speculative fiction.

Bad science journalism my ass. This is some pretty cool stuff, and I can guarantee you 25 years ago nobody would have ever suggested what you think is easy, likely, or even possibly common enough in the universe for you to feel smug.

The more we look out at space and realize how utterly jaw droppingly awesome it is, the more damned awesome it is.

Yes, shit heats and cools. But this is way cooler than that.

Re:More bad science journalism

[penguinoid]

Really? So, in theory, a planet could change from not being detected by our current techniques to detected by them, and that isn't "rejuvenation"?

Correct. Just like when an obscure person becomes well-known, it doesn't make them any younger. And when your body temperature soars during cremation, you also aren't any younger.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Cremation is a good analogue. Those planets are scorched by their dying red giant sun.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Sique]

This just in: the difference between a just formed, new planet and a planet that got hot stellar matter from its central sol is much smaller than the difference between a newly formed planet and one that circles around the quiet central star for some billions of years.

And thus it is a rejuvenation, as the planet gets more similar to its primordal state than before.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like when an obscure person becomes well-known, it doesn't make them any younger. And when your body temperature soars during cremation, you also aren't any younger.

Except that the cooling off of a planet is the primary change that comes from a planet getting older. That matters far more than any analogy with the human body which behaves rather differently than a planet. You might was well complain that someone overhauling a small engine with new oil and gaskets so it runs just like new is not rejuvenation because blood transfusions don't make a person younger (actually, nothing you do to a person actually makes them younger...).

Re:More bad science journalism

[Dcnjoe60]

Just like when an obscure person becomes well-known, it doesn't make them any younger. And when your body temperature soars during cremation, you also aren't any younger.

Except that the cooling off of a planet is the primary change that comes from a planet getting older. That matters far more than any analogy with the human body which behaves rather differently than a planet. You might was well complain that someone overhauling a small engine with new oil and gaskets so it runs just like new is not rejuvenation because blood transfusions don't make a person younger (actually, nothing you do to a person actually makes them younger...).

Rejuvenation implies that the item rejuvenated is equivalent to function, performance, etc. of an earlier state. Rebuilding a small engine would be a type of rejuvenation. As for a planet, if it is rejuvenated, then not only temperature would change, but plate tectonics and other planetary systems would be, too. Your final comment actually, nothing you do to a person actually makes them younger applies to exoplanets, too.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Dcnjoe60]

This just in: the difference between a just formed, new planet and a planet that got hot stellar matter from its central sol is much smaller than the difference between a newly formed planet and one that circles around the quiet central star for some billions of years.

And thus it is a rejuvenation, as the planet gets more similar to its primordal state than before.

Does the so called rejuvenated planet behave similar to the new planet - plate tectonics, chemistry, atmosphere, etc? Seems that to rejuvenate a planet would require more than just blasting it with stellar plasma and burning away it's surface. Just because it is now hotter so that we can detect it doesn't mean it is rejuvenated.

If I leave the electric oven on and don't notice, but turning off the light in the kitchen allows me to see the orange glow does not mean my oven is rejuvenated. So, why should essentially the same thing mean a planet is?

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Your final comment actually, nothing you do to a person actually makes them younger applies to exoplanets, too.

So what you're trying to argue, is that it is impossible to use the word rejuvenate? Why have a word that is impossible to use then? The point is that rejuvenation doesn't make something younger, it makes it act as if it were younger in some way. This works fine for people in many cases, just as it does for exoplanets in this case.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the so called rejuvenated planet behave similar to the new planet - plate tectonics, chemistry, atmosphere, etc?

Those qualities vary quite heavily even across planets of the same age. Those are functions of many parameters. And the key word is similar, not exactly the same.

If I leave the electric oven on and don't notice,...

You seem to be really fixed on the idea that other things must behave exactly the same... just because temperature tends to be a direct function of something like an exoplanet does not mean it is for other things, and conversely just because other things don't get rejuvenated by having their temperature change doesn't mean that word is can't be used anywhere then for a temperature change.

Re:More bad science journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom gets hotter when I dump hot matter on her

apocalyptic

[Noah Haders]

This sounds like a nightmare scenario. your planet has mellowed to a nice sustainable temperature, and then your dying star starts dumping flaming radioactive matter on you, raising the surface temperature of the planet to hundreds of K

Re:apocalyptic

[cellocgw]

Speaking of which, check out "Seveneves," the latest Neal Stephenson. The Earth gets a serious case of rejuvenation.

Rejuvenation

[Headw1nd]

In the "Logan's Run" sense of the word

Isn't our sun supposed to become a red giant?

[Streetlight]

If that's true, we won't have to worry about the trivial climate heating we are experiencing now. We will be toast!

Re:Isn't our sun supposed to become a red giant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, pure conjecture. Our theories are soo out of touch with reality, it's just as plausable to talk about some big arsed alien lighting its fart in the direction of the planet, and hey! It's rejuvenated! Anyone want to try that with one of my farts? See if we can burn all that hair off your head, and it'll be so clean and shiny, you'll be rejuvenated!

Re:Isn't our sun supposed to become a red giant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that we'll be around to witness the red giant phase if we simply ignore climate heating.

Re:Isn't our sun supposed to become a red giant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if we continue to ignore the fact that another ice age is coming. Why does psuedo-science always err on the side of stupid?
We need to bun more oil, not less. The Earth needs our help in getting rid of this toxic substance. Now, I want you to get up. I want you to get up and go to your window and turn on the air conditioner. Then I want you to say I'm warm as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Donald Trump has the most experience of all operating in bankruptcy. I say we give him a shot.

Re:Isn't our sun supposed to become a red giant?

[Dcnjoe60]

If that's true, we won't have to worry about the trivial climate heating we are experiencing now. We will be toast!

That will never happen. Congress will pass a bill not allowing it.

That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

Works the same with stale bread, when it gets cold again it is even worse. 'Publish or perish' doesn't only produce bad science, but bad language as well. Which is detrimental to both science and its popularity.

Re:That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

That has nothing to do with publish or perish. You can look at the original paper and find no references to the terminology in it, where it uses the "re-heated." Publish or perish is just about having enough journal papers to justify your ability to get research done. Stuff like this is typically done by PR types. Sometimes it is the direct result of suggestions by the scientists, but my colleagues and I've had plenty of times where a PR release used headlines that the scientists never saw until it was published, or disagreed with but not enough to put a lot of time and effort into raising a stink. Other times, the PR piece writers will go to great lengths to convince the researcher that they need catchy headlines to make the news piece get noticed (which actually is true, I've seen plenty of great pieces on important work go virtually unnoticed because it looked to boring).

So no, to re-iterate, it is not publish or perish giving this. It is people trying to compete with clickbait headlines, with or without the researcher's blessing.

Also, your comparison to stale bread is kind of pointless, as people don't determine the staleness of bread by temperature, so duh, changing the temperature is not going to going to magically make it permanently not stale. But when planets mainly age by cooling off, changing the temperature will make long lasting changes to the main component of their aging.

Re:That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

This term is from one of the authors:

"When planets are young, they still glow with infrared light from their formation," said Michael Jura of UCLA, coauthor of a new paper on the results in the June 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "But as they get older and cooler, you can't see them anymore. Rejuvenated planets would be visible again."

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4639

Re:That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but they didn't use it in the actual paper. Which is why the comment you replied to already said:

Other times, the PR piece writers will go to great lengths to convince the researcher that they need catchy headlines to make the news piece get noticed

I've had things bounced back from pr writers with notes like, "Cool, but your wording doesn't make it sound cool... pick words that relate it to something in people's every day lives," until they get the sound bite they want.

Re:That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

So then don't let the PR guy write about your work. Why would you want your name to be associated with something like that? And if you "need" to for funding, well... the best BSers will win and that field is doomed. Best to just shut it down rather than spread misinformation for decades.

Re: That's 'reheating', not 'rejuvenation'

[Anonymous Coward]

Conference, university, and national lab PR teams will write stuff whether you want to or not. It comes down to how much time you want to spend fighting them on getting things right, assuming you even realize what they will do (sometimes they do a good job, sometimes not). More than half the time in my experience, problems come from researchers not putting time into dealing with it because it rarely has any effect on funding. That said , when you deal with outreach enough, you find that most people will only remember sound bites anyway, and something is better than nothing. Those that care for details can find them. And it is not like the piece here is that bad, and most of the complaints seem to come from people who fail to understand what an analogy is or are just trying to boost their ego by finding something wrong on the internet.

Thats not a facelift...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a hell of a sun burn.

"Rejuvenated"

[argStyopa]

"Rejuvenated" is such a polite word for "bombarded, wrecked, and slagged to the point that the surface crust is really pretty much just a wreck of molten lava".
As in "Mancini 'rejuvenated' Duk-koo Kim's face...."