1) You're wrong on that one. For most of the genens, we do not even know what protein it encodes for. It can be calculated, but it takes several hours on the Grey supercomputer, and the calculation is usually wrong, because it makes certain assumptions.
2) It's very difficult to find the actual offsets of genes, that's why that approach won't work.
3) That is not true. Of course you are right, not every cell uses all genes, so there's always a large part of genens that isn't used in a cell, but that is not what is meant with the term 'junk DNA'. Junk DNA is dna that isn't part of a gene. Scientist still aren't sure if it's really junk, or does have some function (I personnaly dislike the term 'junk'), but it doesn't code for a gene. Current research suggests in humans about 96% of the DNA is junk DNA. In other life forms, this figure is very different. There are animals without any junk DNA.
Actually, the article at BBC about this also says they are expecting to find even bigger objects (unfortunatly, it doesn't mention why they expect this). They expect to find bodies larger than pluto.
If they find bodies larger then pluto in the Kuiperbelt they have only 2 choices: classify them as planet, or declassify pluto as a planet.
I think it'll be the latter, you can't have a zillion planets floating around in the Kuiperbelt....
These bodies do not produce light! So you can not see them with telescopes, no matter how many you build. (well, maybe with a telescope the size of the solar system you could see the light of other stars reflecting of them)
You can only estimate their mass, and 1 space telescope is enough for that.
I think the most likely explanation is that these wandering planets are simply really planets, that somehow got away from their star.
What would happen to the planetaire systems of 2 stars if they pass eachother at say, less than 1 lightyear distance? Of course, most planets would simply be destroyed if such a thing happened, but a few of they are bound to get accelerated by the gravitational pulls and thrown away from the system.
I don't really trust the megasun theory. Sounds too far fatched for me.
interesting thing is they didn't use a high enough sample rate while taking pictures (they never expected to find objects this small). So they can't really give a reliable estimate of the time the microlensing continued, which means they can't reliably estimate the mass of these objects.
So the figure of 80 times as massive as our earth (and not, as RareHeintz points out 80 times less massive) is an upper limit. In reality this objects could be a lot smaller!
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2) It's very difficult to find the actual offsets of genes, that's why that approach won't work.
3) That is not true. Of course you are right, not every cell uses all genes, so there's always a large part of genens that isn't used in a cell, but that is not what is meant with the term 'junk DNA'. Junk DNA is dna that isn't part of a gene. Scientist still aren't sure if it's really junk, or does have some function (I personnaly dislike the term 'junk'), but it doesn't code for a gene. Current research suggests in humans about 96% of the DNA is junk DNA. In other life forms, this figure is very different. There are animals without any junk DNA.
Actually, the article at BBC about this also says they are expecting to find even bigger objects (unfortunatly, it doesn't mention why they expect this). They expect to find bodies larger than pluto. If they find bodies larger then pluto in the Kuiperbelt they have only 2 choices: classify them as planet, or declassify pluto as a planet. I think it'll be the latter, you can't have a zillion planets floating around in the Kuiperbelt....
You can only estimate their mass, and 1 space telescope is enough for that.
What would happen to the planetaire systems of 2 stars if they pass eachother at say, less than 1 lightyear distance? Of course, most planets would simply be destroyed if such a thing happened, but a few of they are bound to get accelerated by the gravitational pulls and thrown away from the system.
I don't really trust the megasun theory. Sounds too far fatched for me.
I'm sure you did, I'm sure you did.
In fact, why did you think I registered?
Anyway, thanks for your reply. It makes me feel, wanted...
interesting thing is they didn't use a high enough sample rate while taking pictures (they never expected to find objects this small). So they can't really give a reliable estimate of the time the microlensing continued, which means they can't reliably estimate the mass of these objects. So the figure of 80 times as massive as our earth (and not, as RareHeintz points out 80 times less massive) is an upper limit. In reality this objects could be a lot smaller!
I'm sorry, but this is old news. Sciam already posted this a week ago.
http://www.sciam.com/news/062101/1.html
Hi everybody by the way. I've been lurking in the science section for quite a while now, and decided to register just now.