Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn’t Be There

I skimmed over the posts. I was taught several years ago when I took an Astronomy course, that an object such as Jupiter would need about 75 times the mass of Jupiter to have sustained fusion reactions at the core. At only 11 times the mass, obviously it's not big enough. Interesting find though. I was wondering if they still taught the same number in Astronomy classes but most people do not take an Astronomy class in college. I heard I took the hardest to pass teacher and I was the only student taking the course as an elective course. I studied it a lot more than I thought would be necessary. It was one of the best classes I took I thought. I learned about fusion, meteorology, and basic science or what science thought were the facts at that point in time. To sustain fusion, an object needed a minimum mass about 75 times the mass of Jupiter. Anything less would not have the gravitational pressure to achieve sustained fusion.

Nice find. Thanks for posting.

Great post also, It is thought that our spiral structure in the milky way is generated via close approach or coalescing of galaxies. nbody simulations support this and observational evidence fit with the simulations quite well

ErosA433
The simulation in the video seems to show what would be attempts to generate large planets close to the host star, which was a little bit of a confusion to astronomers when they observed jupiter+ sized planets right next to hosts as the 'calm and peaceful' style of planetary formation that we had mostly been working out didn't fit that.

I don't claim to have any particular expertise on what they tried to do in that video specifically, but I did notice the scale in the title said "(200 AU View)". I don't know if this means 200AU diameter and 100AU radius or what but in any case I think Jupiter is only about 5AU from our sun so I didn't get the impression they were trying to show objects particularly close to the star given the scale.

Formation of the objects in the video seems to be a much more chaotic system, which is also possible, I would hazard a guess that our solar system is not that uncommon, but more systems probably formed in a more chaotic manner (my opinion) and do show clearly how matter can be ejected from a proto-planetary disc.

Your opinion that more solar systems formed in a more chaotic manner than our own would seem to have some evidence supporting it, in the form of both computer simulations (1st link) and observations (2nd link):

Astronomers Put Solar System In Perspective: Special Indeed

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Prevailing theoretical models attempting to explain the formation of the solar system have assumed it to be average in every way. Now a new study by Northwestern University astronomers, using recent data from the 300 exoplanets discovered orbiting other stars, turns that view on its head.

The solar system, it turns out, is pretty special indeed. The study illustrates that if early conditions had been just slightly different, very unpleasant things could have happened -- like planets being thrown into the sun or jettisoned into deep space.

Using large-scale computer simulations, the Northwestern researchers are the first to model the formation of planetary systems from beginning to end, starting with the generic disk of gas and dust that is left behind after the formation of the central star and ending with a full planetary system. Because of computing limitations, earlier models provided only brief glimpses of the process.

The researchers ran more than a hundred simulations, and the results show that the average planetary system's origin was full of violence and drama but that the formation of something like our solar system required conditions to be "just right."

Even our solar system formation was pretty chaotic if the hypothesis about the formation of Earth's moon from a collision is true, in which case there would likely have been other collisions also. But I don't think any of that is incompatible with the planets forming from a proto-planetary disk.

How Planets Form: 'It's a Mess Out There'

New observations of dust around young stars suggests collisions of large asteroid-like objects and fledgling planets are frequent. But that doesn't likely stop the formation of rocky planets like Earth, a process that may well be common, the results suggest.

Based on the violent past of our own solar system, many astronomers had assumed planet formation was a chaotic process involving a lot of smash-ups. The new observations of 266 stars confirm that view and provide new details about just how wild things are.

"It's a mess out there," said George Rieke of the University of Arizona. "We are seeing that planets have a long, rocky road to go down before they become full grown." ...

The process is not always smooth. Our Moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-sized object hit Earth shortly after our planet gathered itself together. For a few hundred million years thereafter, impacts of huge asteroids rocked all the worlds of the inner solar system. Craters on the Moon serve as a record of that chaotic time.

I agree the craters on the moon show evidence of a violent past but apparently even so our solar system may be atypical in being less violent and chaotic than the majority of solar systems.

I guess the bottom line to all this is that based on hundreds of computer simulations and hundreds of observations of young solar systems, there is a lot of variability observed in what can happen and in any system with variability, you have the norm (or peak of the bell curve if the effect is normally distributed) and the outliers (or "tails of the bell curve so to speak). So it's not that surprising to find tails of a bell curve if that's what this topic in the OP turns out to be, where something happens outside the norm, because every bell curve has tails. That doesn't mean that scientists don't know what they're doing, in fact from the two articles cited above it looks like they are running some pretty interesting simulations and collecting some interesting observational data on what really happens when other solar systems form.

^ 200 AU diameter what? One could say distance from a star but not diameter. No such planet has such a diameter lol.. You know 200 AU ~ 3x10^10 km (2.99x10^8)

--

As some said, lots of things could be questioned, even things that we think are, including the BIG BANG theory, it is a theory, it could be radically different, I do not like when science puts something and starts making it look like a fact and when a person is asked how something formed - he will speak as if he is talking about it as a fact, when this is a theory that could be questioned any given time something better is discovered.

SuperFrog
reply to post by sparky31

 

Not sure that I understand what are you suggesting?

Should scientist stop with research as there might be something elsewhere that might prove it wrong?!

Interesting approach, thankfully our ancestors did not think that way or we still would wonder if there is some other way to create fire...

eh no thats what i,m not saying at all,what i,m saying is scientists have came out and said things are impossible when in last few years they have been proved wrong.

i,m saying just cause some scientist says it can,t be doesn,t mean they actually know for fact but we,r suppose to accept everything they say.

orionthehunter
I skimmed over the posts. I was taught several years ago when I took an Astronomy course, that an object such as Jupiter would need about 75 times the mass of Jupiter to have sustained fusion reactions at the core. At only 11 times the mass, obviously it's not big enough. Interesting find though. I was wondering if they still taught the same number in Astronomy classes but most people do not take an Astronomy class in college. I heard I took the hardest to pass teacher and I was the only student taking the course as an elective course. I studied it a lot more than I thought would be necessary. It was one of the best classes I took I thought. I learned about fusion, meteorology, and basic science or what science thought were the facts at that point in time. To sustain fusion, an object needed a minimum mass about 75 times the mass of Jupiter. Anything less would not have the gravitational pressure to achieve sustained fusion.

Nice find. Thanks for posting.

Essentially, though the line has become a little blurred. There have been different classes of brown dwarfs discovered.

Here is what may have changed since your class: coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu...

Also there was a lot of debate as to what the cutoff between a low mass brown dwarf and a planet is in terms of mass it doesn't seem to be that there is one, there's overlap. It's all about how the object forms.


From www.nasa.gov...

Elusive brown dwarfs, the missing link between gas giant planets like Jupiter and small, low-mass stars, have now been "fingerprinted" by UCLA astronomy professor Ian S. McLean and colleagues, using the Keck II Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.


Brown dwarfs are failed stars about the size of Jupiter, with a much larger mass but not quite large enough to become stars. Like the sun and Jupiter, they are composed mainly of hydrogen gas, perhaps with swirling cloud belts. Unlike the sun, they have no internal energy source and emit almost no visible light. Brown dwarfs are formed along with stars by the contraction of gases and dust in the interstellar medium, McLean said. The first brown dwarf was not discovered until 1995, yet McLean suspects the galaxy is teeming with them.

So this object may be a brown dwarf, or a planet, or a bit of both. That's why it's perplexing.

sparky31
i,m saying just cause some scientist says it can,t be doesn,t mean they actually know for fact but we,r suppose to accept everything they say.

No you don't.


You can always check their math if you're smart enough. Science doesn't make declarations without evidence that you're supposed to accept at face value.

That's psuedoscience.

Science tells you what we think we know and most importantly, why we think we know it. You can always check the papers out, do the math yourself, etc.

ImpactoR
^ 200 AU diameter what? One could say distance from a star but not diameter. No such planet has such a diameter lol.. You know 200 AU ~ 3x10^10 km (2.99x10^8)

200AU view means 200AU view. I was referring to orbits since the animation shows protoplanet orbits.

You see several planets in the animation, why would you think it was referring to the diameter of one planet?

If that was a 200AU view of our solar system, and pluto's average distance from the sun was 40AU, then pluto's orbit would take up about 40% of the screen. So it's really a broad perspective.

ErosA433
What do you mean undiscovered process?

I am talking about other processes that have yet to be discovered by mainstream science. I am also not talking about Neutrinos only. I'm talking about another energy source as well. Have you ever been to the center of the Earth to observe what goes on there? No... you have not.

ErosA433
You know how neutrinos are observed in detectors around the world right? Heard of Super Kamiokande?

Yes I do. Yes I have.

ErosA433
It can occur by charged current and neutral current and charge current quasi-elastic scattering. This is not unknown or mysterious, for you to write it as such is a very big misrepresentation and a clear sign of how much you are simply repeating things you dont really understand.

Maybe you need to learn to read. I wasn't just talking about Neutrinos, nor was I only talking about that one process where Neutrinos transform into leptons. I was talking about another process.

I understand and know things you will never understand or know. So kindly refrain from your attempt at belittling me based off your inability to read.

ErosA433
A neutrino comes in and interacts with the nucleus or atomic shell electrons and it can either scatter something, or it can create a lepton (if the neutrino has enough of the rest mass energy) So yes it is possible for the Earth to accumulate some mass via neutrinos.

Yes, I know. That is why I wrote about it, and then hinted about another unknown process. Again, I wasn't just talking about Neutrinos, nor was I talking about that one and only process you are familiar with.

ErosA433
Though if you were to do a calculation of exactly the rate, I would hazard a guess that it is loosing its atmosphere at a faster rate.

A guess... A guess is all you will be capable of until you visit the center of the Earth, or do another experiment which I can guarantee you are unfamiliar with. Also, don't forget other types of energy.

ErosA433
Nope I finished my undergrad many years ago, I got a PhD in Particle Physics (Experimental as opposed to theoretical) and am now a postdoc working on a dark matter experiment

That's great. You have proven you know how to memorize text books with other people's discoveries. What have you discovered lately?

The GUT
What we don't know is light-years away from what we do know, eh?

Scientific knowledge is cool...but its arms are too short. The vastness of the cosmos and the mystery of consciousness will always leave us floundering in a sense of wonder. And many steps behind seems to be the best guess.

edit on 5-12-2013 by The GUT because: (no reason given)

And may this always be the case For what is life without mystery? I think we should place less emphasis on the scientific answers to things, and enjoy the mystery of the unknown with the kind of attitude that curious children exhibit. Because the fact is, we will never answer every question. Not in this life or the many to come. So why is it such a controversial matter to suggest that science isn't perfect? It never will be! And in my opinion, that's the most special blessing bestowed upon us from the cosmos. The thrill of mystery.

I hope human science is eternally insecure and constantly forced to check itself. Because otherwise, the imaginations of humanity will wither and die, along with our species.

reply to post by WeAre0ne


Pretty funny reply there, didn't realize you was one of the oracles. I can indeed read, but perhaps rather than lecturing and at the same time really giving no information more than a general

"I know more than you, I have some kind of secret information and knowledge" claiming I take a belittling tone and then producing exactly the same tine. Sure eye for an eye tooth for a tooth and all that.

It is not hard to imagine many many things, but by making one statement that is true... I definitely have not been to the centre of the Earth... does not mean your statements following have any more reality based relevance.

Scientists and people have not been to the centre of the Earth, they have however tried to recreate conditions similar to it in the laboratory. Since you criticize my reading skills, perhaps you might like to search for a thread here on ATS with regard to scientists studying how chemicals behave under extreme temperatures and pressures, discovering a interesting and new phase of iron, in which it forms organized crystals. Material sciences is a very interesting subject, I am not versed on it at all, but one thing they have done is definitely discover more than armchair scientists who quite often have comments similar to your own about the universe.


What have I discovered? Well given that Iv spent the last 10 years of my life surrounded by various lab equipment, Iv discovered a little bit more than most people have. I am an experimentalist trying to discover or at least uncover the nature of dark matter. In the course of my work I have discovered / measured absolute photon detection efficiencies of single photon counting devices, a measurement that was free of other negative effects such as dark current, cross talk etc in order to understand how said devices was actually performing. I have performed screening and material selection for a Dark Matter experiment, measuring the effects of various cleaning agents on surface radioactivity. Studied what chemical contaminants a small selection of materials hold onto and then release when under vacuum (You would be surprised how much water can be soaked up by acrylic)...

So lets be clear, Im a scientist, yes you would say a mainstream one... but I am trying to discover many things, so now, what have you discovered?

WeAre0ne

I understand and know things you will never understand or know.

Really? Care to tell us two things that would go a long way?

1. How do you know these things?

2. Where did you learn them?

A guess... A guess is all you will be capable of until you visit the center of the Earth, or do another experiment which I can guarantee you are unfamiliar with. Also, don't forget other types of energy.

So you were in the center of the Earth?

Um......ok.. Yeah, that doesn't sound completely like crazy nonsense....

That's great. You have proven you know how to memorize text books with other people's discoveries. What have you discovered lately?

The same could be asked of you. What have you discovered and most importantly, what peer reviewed journal is your discovery published in?

Great post, one of the best! Science is ever changing and nothing should ever be written in stone (so to speak)
S & F