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Looking For Jupiter-Class Planets Indicates Solar Systems Like Ours Are Rare (theconversation.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A high school senior from New York analyzed data for more than 1,100 stars and pinpointed the frequency of Jupiter analogs (planets with similar mass and orbital period to Jupiter) to 3%. He published his results in a paper for the Astrophysical Journal. The relative rarity of Jupiter-like planets indicates that true solar system analogs should themselves be rare. By extension, given the important role that Jupiter played at all stages of the formation of the solar system, Earth-like habitable planets with similar formation history to our solar system will be rare.
From the article:
Look, it's great that this kid is involved, but quit lying about his contribution; when surrounded by such co-authors, even a monkey could have participated successfully.
"Solar systems" like ours are rare indeed, because there is only one Solar System.
It's a proper noun.
The term the article was looking for was planetary system.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
let's wait for the peer reviewed finds before we comment, right?
It's rather premature to declare all those systems devoid of planets when our primary means for detecting possible planets is when they pass between our planet and their star at the same time we observe them. Jupiter takes 12 years to make an orbit. As a simple logic problem, that means that we have to one opportunity to observe Jupiter passing between Sol and some sort of earth-analog in another system.... and that makes the HUGE assumption that that earth-analog is aligned with the solar system's orbital plane. If the earth analog happens to be staring down north-south on Sol, it isn't going to detect any planets.
There are a few other ways to detect planets, but those are special cases, again, very rare, and detecting very unique planets.
Detecting Sol-like systems is still extremely difficult.
Jupiter has an orbital period of 12 years. From what I've understood it takes 3 passes to confirm an exoplanet, meaning 0-12 years to initial discovery + 2*12 = 24 years for a Jupiter-class planet. It's only been 23 years since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992 and detection capability has improved much since then, so it's way too early to tell. Maybe you can start making semi-educated guesses from lack of candidates, but that too seems premature. In another 15-20 years, we'll have much better answers.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In what way can an analysis of 1,122 stars be considered significant?
How were these 1,122 selected? The paper is almost deliberately vague on this point, simply choosing to refer to them as "our sample".
The phrase, "A high school senior from New York analyzed data" is highly misleading. There were 13 authors.
The paper only takes data from one telescope. Presumably this paper was not the telescope's primary focus (if it was someone needs to pull the funding now) so the data has been collected as a side project. How did the telescope's main function constrain the sampling of data? If it was looking at particular stars for a reason this could easily skew the data.
Basically, there's nothing to see here, move along.
At roughly 3%, that means about 100x as many Jupiter analogs in our galaxy as there is carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (by percentage).
At roughly 3%, that means there are only about 10 billion Jupiter analogs in our own galaxy of roughly 300 billion stars.
Yes, 'rare' is a relative word especially when you are dealing with numbers that seem to be beyond human comprehension.
then you'll likely get a 1% result. Divide the pie up and you get lot of pieces, funnily. There's probably a name for it too.
Sure, solar systems like us might be rare but we're still talking millions of systems like ours just in this galaxy.Only about 0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the universe contains any matter at all.
There is a moon that orbits the Earth that English speakers normally just call "the Moon" (note the capital letter for a proper noun). That doesn't mean there aren't other moons (obviously). If we need to give it a name, I'd suggest the Latin name (Luna), but most people don't use that terminology. Similarly, we are in "the Solar System", but I don't see a problem calling other systems "solar systems"; they just aren't THE solar system.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
"High School Senior Thinks He's Smarter than Experienced Astrophysicists"
The lack of jupiter orbit type gas giants in the sample does not mean a dirth of possibly habitable candidate objects.
Like always, they completely ignore the prospect of large numbers of moons around extra solar gas giants, and thus ignore the prospects of possibly habitable moons.
Granted, there isnt sufficient data to make even rough estimates of that yet, since we cant really "direct image" extra solar planets to look for moons, but that is likely to change when James Webb launches and starts performing science.
I still find the failure to even acknowledge this possibility to be disturbing.
You can only detect planets that pass in front of a star and have a short orbital period. Jupiter would be difficult to detect. So I have doubt about the young man's conclusion.
If you see a trillion of them before you die, what?
Wouldn't it be more prudent to look to God?
Dinosaurs? Would you be on a PC on an Internet right now if it weren't for fossil fuels? Any idea how much oil and gas it takes to even make a car? How much gas it takes to get people to where they design electronics (and everything else)? How much fossil fuel it takes to build each machinery and transport it, along with all of the vehicles/planes/ships etc to make things happen?
If dinosaurs weren't killed off do you think you would be able to fight them off? Dinosaurs existed but God doesn't?
God does exist. Jesus is Lord. Amen.
http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=56&ch=4&l=6#x
[6] One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. [7] But to every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of Christ. [8] Wherefore he saith: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. [9] Now that he ascended, what is it, but because he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? [10] He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
Based on the plot, it looks like the type of planet/orbit detected is closely tied to the detection method. That implies we are not getting a full sample of actual planets.
Table-ized A.I.
This is why you don't leave important scientific "facts" to high schoolers to "discover"
Cool, the kid analyzed some existing data, but what about the truth to said data? How do we know the transit period of a planet around a star? We measure the dimming light of the star on a periodic basis. After three transits, we can determine with an amount of certainty that it is indeed a planet, and not just other objects obscuring the star.
Jupiter transits Sun aprox every 12 years. This would mean at a bare minimum of 24 years from initial discovery to confirmation using the transit in front of star method. The first planet discovered outside of our solar system was in what, 1992 I do believe? This is only 23 years ago.
So think about this. It would take 24 years to confirm a Jupiter orbit planet, and the first confirmation is only 23 years ago? So the fact that 3% of the studied stars have this confirmation, personally, I believe to be extremely high and common, not rare at all.
The reason we find so many gas giants close to stars is because those are easy to find. Jupiter-like planets are much harder to find, and hence underrepresented in the data. You can use the data as a lower bound, but not as an upper bound.
There aren't any others.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I was under the impression that one planet 8x the size of earth orbits close to a dim star was in a zone where water would be a liquid and hope for life, yet Wikipedia claims otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (it being likely to have a runaway greenhouse effect).
Miren quemados del cerebro mas mejor si a ust. Los mandan para aya con toda su bola de estupidezes aqui no se necesitan pendejos sabelotodo