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The pace of planet discoveries beyond our own solar system is accelerating -- but some of those discoveries have raised new puzzles as well. Take the case of planetary pulverization, or the latest example of extrasolar extravagance.
First, let's consider the pulverized planets: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected a surprisingly large amount of dust around three pairs of mature, close-orbiting stars. Astronomers say these are not the dusty cradles of planets yet to come. Instead, they appear to be the dusty graveyards of planets that have been ground down to bits. Their findings appear in the Aug. 19 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"This is real-life science fiction," Jeremy Drake of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the principal investigator behind the research, said in a news release. "Our data tell us that planets in these systems might not be so lucky -- collisions could be common. It's theoretically possible that habitable planets could exist around these types of stars, so if there happened to be any life there, it could be doomed."
The types of systems in question are called RS Canum Venaticorums, or RS CVns for short, after one example of the category in the northern constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). Such sets of binary stars are typically separated by only about 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers), or one-fiftieth of the distance between Earth and the sun. The stars spin around each other in just a matter of days -- and all that jostling creates a wild gravitational ride for any planetary bodies in nearby orbits.
The three star systems studied by Spitzer are old enough that most of the dust around them should have dissipated, as it has in our own solar system. Nevertheless, the telescope has detected the infrared glow of hot, dusty disks -- as hot as molten lava on Earth. Drake and his colleagues suggest that the dust was kicked up by planets smashing into each other. Additional detections of RS CVns have convinced the astronomers that what they're seeing is not a fluke.
"These kinds of systems paint a picture of the late stages in the lives of planetary systems," said Marc Kuchner, a co-author from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "And it's a future that's messy and violent."
Plenitude of planets
And now for the extrasolar extravagance: The discovery of as many as seven planets, announced today by European astronomers, could represent a record for the number of worlds detected in orbit around one alien star. But the orbits for two of those seven still have to be confirmed. The biggest challenge is to nail down the detection of a close-orbiting, rocky world that may represent the smallest known extrasolar planet (potentially only 1.4 times as massive as Earth).
"This is the planet that has the highest uncertainty, if you like, and in order to conclude on it, we have to take several measurements on the same night," Christophe Lovis of Geneva University, the study's lead author, told me today.
One of the weirdest things about the HD 10180 planetary system is that the supposed super-Earth and five Neptune-scale planets are all orbiting within what would be Mars' orbit in our own solar system. How could so many big planets exist in that space without getting in each other's way, as the pulverized planets did?
"They cannot form where they are now," Lovis said. "You have to imagine a situation where they all migrate together, harmonically."
He suggested that a large number of protoplanets built up around the parent star, and "through ejections and accretions on each other, the number of bodies was reduced until a stable state existed."
Is this system really stable, though, or are HD 10180's planets still in flux? "We made an extensive dynamical study in the paper," Lovis said. "It is stable, provided we really integrate all the ingredients into the model."
That includes the gravitational attraction exerted by the star, the mutual gravitational influences of all the planets on each other, and tidal forces. Lovis said the calculations even include the effects of general relativity, "which are usually small, but in this case we have to include it in the model."
Another weird angle is that if you chart the planets' distances on a logarithmic scale, they fall almost precisely along a straight line, much as the inner planets of our own solar system do. Back in the 18th century, this logarithmic arrangement was considered a law of physics, known as the Titius-Bode Law. The formula fit neatly with the discoveries of Uranus and the dwarf planet Ceres ... but it failed to predict the orbit of Neptune, which was discovered in 1846.
Lovis said the idea behind the Titius-Bode Law might merit a second look, based on the arrangement of HD 10180 and several other extrasolar multi-planet systems. "I'm not claiming that this is something fundamental," he told me. "If you assume some kind of criterion that will assure stability, then you end up very often with some kind of Titius-Bode Law. ... I think it's an interesting thing to investigate."
More interesting things could come out on Thursday, when researchers on NASA's Kepler mission team are to announce the discovery of an "intriguing planetary system." Further details are embargoed until then, but be assured that we'll have the latest smashing news right here.
In addition to Drake and Kuchner, the researchers behind the Spitzer study include first author Marco Matranga, V.L. Kashyap and Massimo Marengo. In addition to Lovis, the researchers behind the HD 10180 study include D. Segransan, M. Mayor, S. Udry, W. Benz, J.-L. Bertaux, F. Bouchy, A.C.M. Correia, J. Laskar, G. Lo Curto, C. Mordasini, F. Pepe, D. Queloz and N.C. Santos.
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This is interesting, although I have no immediately conscious idea why it is interesting, but so what . . .
So what!
As best as I can determine, the interesting part is the logarithmic distribution or sequencing of the orbits and locations of planets, which certainly appears to be a curious coincidence . . .
Instead of focusing on things that make sense, I look for things that either are a bit too logical or on the other side of the coin are a bit too illogical, really . . .
Really!
And after trying to make sense of Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity over the past half century or so, it is beginning to make a bit of sense, so long as I avoid the elaborate mathematics . . .
The first big clue was that one slice of spacetime is like a big sheet of rubber, where by placing the sun in the middle of the big sheet of rubber it creates a curved depression that affects the orbits of the planets in our solar system, which makes a bit of sense and is easy to visualize . . .
The second big clue appeared this year in a few of the science-based cable channel programs, where the concept of riding a bicycle or rocket ship to try to follow a beam of light is a stellar thing to ponder and apparently is something that Albert Einstein pondered as a child, which is a bit mind-boggling, for sure . . .
For sure!
And based on what looks to be at least a somewhat plausible hypothesis--specifically that a small cadre of scientists and military personnel working for the federal government knows a lot more about aliens from outer space and other phenomena than they are willing to reveal--I am intrigued by the general parsimony that defines the current strategy for making information derived from Kepler Satellite data readily available to the public without a lot of internal review and oversight, with one example of this being the incident covered in the Cosmic Log entry for July 26, 2010, really . . .
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/26/4756559-millions-of-earths-talk-causes-a-stir
Really!
One might hope that the common folk of our great nation will have few problems with the ideas (a) that there probably are millions (if not billions) of planets in the universe and (b) that some of these planets are inhabited by intelligent lifeforms, but this appears to be inconsistent with the perspective of the aforementioned small cadre of scientists and military personnel, which certainly is intriguing . . .
It might be a bit odd to imagine oneself pedaling a bicycle in deep space; energizing a laser pen attached to the front of the handlebar; and then trying to pedal sufficiently fast toward the goal of catching up to the end of the light beam emerging from the laser pen, but so what . . .
So what!
If I understand everything correctly, then if one happened to be pedaling at the speed of light at the instant the laser pen was energized, the light emerging from the laser pen would not appear to travel very far past the end of the laser pen, if the light appeared to emerge from the laser pen at all, which is a curious thing to ponder, for sure . . .
For sure!
And if it was a very large and powerful laser that was attached to the front of a spaceship, such that the beam of light was larger than the spaceship, then if the spaceship was traveling a bit slower than the speed of light, one might presume that for observers located at a great distance from the front of the spaceship, such observers only would see a bright light rather than a bright light attached to the front of a spaceship, which creates the possibility that a fleet of spaceships could be "cloaked" by bright lasers attached to the front of each spaceship or perhaps by a massive laser attached to a forward "fleet cloaking" spaceship . . .
Additionally, if the laser light(s) could be finely tuned and focused in such a way that it would appear to naive astronomers as if it were ancient solar systems with various numbers of orbiting planetary bodies, then depending on the precision of the fine-tuning and focusing, one might suppose that it could be possible for the fleet of alien spaceships to be considerably closer to Earth than anyone on this planet might imagine, which to be as clear as possible soon leads one to the strange thought that the Kepler Mission might have discovered exactly such a "cloaked" fleet of alien spaceships, which makes it quite obvious to the aforementioned small cadre of scientists and military personnel that the Earth is very likely to be invaded soon by a horde of aliens traveling in a "cloaked" fleet of spaceship at sublight speeds . . .
Stated another way, it is not the possible discovery of habitable planets that intrigues me about the Kepler Mission . . .
Not at all!
Instead, I am intrigued by the other types of information that the Kepler Satellite is recording and transmitting to NASA, as well as whether (a) all the data is made available to the public or (b) only highly-filtered and carefully-selected subsets of the data are released to the public . . .
In other words, if the various astronomical observing instruments on the Kepler Satellite are able to detect enough information to make it possible to determine whether bits of light are consistent with what astrophysics strongly suggests are solar systems with habitable orbiting planetary bodies, then what other types of entities or things can these instruments observe with equally reasonable accuracy and reliability?
What "other" entities and things can the Kepler Satellite observe and identify, and when will this information be revealed to the public?
This is what I want to know!
And considering that the NASA website for the Kepler Mission currently has the number of "Kepler Planets" at a whopping total of "5", with the counter having only three digits (which allows the count to be no higher than "999", unless NASA is planning to start counting in base-17 or something similar), then how much sense does it make in the grand scheme of everything that a purported survey of the galaxy, universe, or whatever is likely to yield a total of no more than "999" habitable planetary bodies?
http://kepler.nasa.gov/
I have no idea!
Yet, intuitively it does not make a lot of sense to expect that a detailed survey of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of tiny points of blurred light will map to the general conclusion that we are the only intelligent lifeforms in the known universe, really . . .
Really!
So, I look forward to upcoming Cosmic Log updates on the more curiously odd bits of information associated with the Kepler Mission, since it is becoming obvious that there is a lot more information coming from the Kepler Satellite than the general public might imagine, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :)
Are you a writer of Science Fiction, Baldenario?
I found a few things in Baldenario's comment that were worthy of discussion but i'm going to keep it light today and simply focus on the fact that the kepler site only has a three digit counter for planets and the counter is currently at five.
Websites are continuously added and changed. anyone with a facebook page or myspace account knows more about this than I do. The quick and dirty answer here is that if the number of "Kepler planets" increases to over 999 then they will replace the counter with another one, most likely that counter would go up to 999,999. but what occurs to me as I'm writing this is that by the time they have confirmed 999 planets there will likely be a naming system for them and thus they will move away from calling all planets discovered by kepler "Kepler planets".
Kepler's mission is to find "earth-like" exo planets.
(from wikipedia) January 2010- "The first six weeks of data revealed five previously unknown planets, all very close to their stars"
Kepler has found a crap ton of short period planets so far. I don't think any have necessarily be "earth-like" but as the number of overall planets are confirmed I would think it likely that the website will be changed to more accurately relate the mission findings to the general public.
Which brings us to Balderino's (or Baldenario- i like the sound of balderino better) point of disseminating the gathered observations to the public. No, they won't tell the public anything until it's been checked, double-checked, confirmed, and deemed safe for the public.
I (personally) feel it's a good idea for anyone who may have actual evidence of intelligent E.T.'s to think about what may happen to the world if the evidence became widely known and accepted as fact. If the people of Earth knew beyond a doubt that we are not alone (and I would definitely love to know this) I think the overall reaction from humanity would be a negative one.
mob_barley wrote:-
I (personally) feel it's a good idea for anyone who may have actual evidence of intelligent E.T.'s to think about what may happen to the world if the evidence became widely known and accepted as fact. If the people of Earth knew beyond a doubt that we are not alone (and I would definitely love to know this) I think the overall reaction from humanity would be a negative one.
I'd prefer to let the evidence out on extra-terrestrial life, intelligent or not. Partly because people deserve to know the truth.
I think chaos (and violence) would ensue for a start, if the evidence is related to intelligent life. While many people may grapple with the new found knowledge and try to figure our place in the universe, others may just exploit it, the way they do it today. For the long term, when things sink in eventually, maybe humankind will become more mature and learn to live with each other more amicably?
Rakesh, I agree whole heartedly, If I had the proof that would end the discussion and prove once and for all that Intelligent ET exists I would surely break the news to the world, however I would do it knowing that there would be the initial phase of chaos and or violence.
I think ultimately people CAN handle the truth. but I feel there will be tremendous violence at first, something akin to a religious war or something of that nature. of all the religious folks I've ever talked to none have said they could imagine an ET unless it falls under the "created in god's image" criteria that (they say) we do.
I feel hard proof of aliens (that are not similar to humans) would NOT disprove God. But religious folks have a tendency to disagree with me on that.
I believe intelligent beings exist elsewhere in the cosmos.
@Cinclodesfuscus:
I like to think so . . . :)
When I first got a personal computer over two decades ago, I quickly realized that even though I had been working on mainframe computers for a while, I had no idea what one actually could do with a personal computer, so I started looking for things that might be interesting to do, which is the way I discovered word-processing, and since it was the only application that made sense to me this was when I decided to start writing a science fiction story, which over a few years mapped to having six chapters, mostly because I was not so proficient then as I am now, where at present I can write science fiction very quickly, which among other things is the result of composing comments like this every day for nearly two decades, as well as doing a lot of grammar and dictionary studying . . .
About a decade earlier, when I was taking third-year physics with calculus, I started keeping a notebook with various theories that appeared from time to time, and I continue to use some of them in a science fiction context every so often . . .
Today, I have about 15 chapters of the science fiction story, and I call it "Extreme Gravity", which is based on one of the more curious aspects of nearly every third-year physics with calculus textbook, which to be specific is that there are four sections (gravity, electricity, magnetism, light), where the middle two are a mirrored pair, such that (a) electricity generates magnetism and (b) magnetism generates electricity . . .
And since I had nearly no conventional or logical understanding of physics at the time, common sense suggested to me that when there are four things and two of them are a pair, then the other two probably also are a pair, which after a bit of pondering led me to ask the physics professor a few questions about the idea that gravity and light are a pair, which he thought was an interesting concept since among other things (a) gravity bends light and (b) the affect of gravity tends to travel at the speed of light, which as the professor explained, for example, maps to the gravitational effect of a Saturn V rocket soon after launch making its way to the moon at the speed of light, based on various measurements using some type of device left on the moon during the first few lunar missions, where as I recall there is some type of reflective dish on the moon or something similar . . .
I have no idea how the measurements were done, but the important thing is that gravity appears to travel at or near the speed of light, as does electricity and magnetism, which is fascinating . . .
Fascinating!
And since a few years later the construction for the Superconducting Super Collider project in Waxahatchie, Texas was going full-speed (at least until it was canceled), I thought that it was a bit amusing to ponder the idea that when the device actually started working and beams of light were rotating in the elaborate ring of fiber optic cables in the underground tunnel surrounding Dallas and Fort Worth that those cities might be ejected from the planet by the ensuing artificially-generated gravitational field, which continues to be an interesting concept to ponder . . .
In other words, if you make a coil of copper wire and run electricity through it, then you get a magnetic field, so it appears to be logical that if you make a coil of fiber optic cable and run light through it, then you should get a gravitational field, which is an experiment I certainly would like to do if I ever have a few hundred million dollars and am bored silly . . .
Incidentally, according to the wikipedia entry, the Superconducting Super Colllider was slated to be nearly three times as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider, where the former had a planned collision energy of 40 trillion electron volts (TeV) and the latter has a planned collision energy of 15 trillion electron volts (TeV) . . .
Unfortunately, the Superconducting Super Collider project was canceled, but so what . . .
So what!
Perhaps parts of France and Switzerland will be ejected from the planet once the Large Hadron Collider attains maximum power, speed, or whatever . . .
Whatever!
Starting about five years ago, I did some experiments with the first few chapters of "Extreme Gravity" in an old-time radio play format, which was an interesting way to start learning about digital recording, but the production was a bit primitive, since at the time I did not know so much about doing audio work, although there are moments when it is pretty good if you listen to it with headphones, since I was doing headphone mixing at the time . . .
The material is good, but it needs to be remixed and remastered, perhaps with some updates based on all the stuff I have learned about music and audio recording over the past five years, which among other things includes being able to compose elaborate orchestration using computer-based music composition software (Notation 3), which about three or so months ago I discovered I can do easily, which is a bit mind-boggling . . .
http://www.surfwhammys.com/Surrealeria-06-22-2010.wmv
Mind-boggling!
This is an excerpt from the first volume of "Extreme Gravity", where it is a few minutes of the end of one of the six chapters . . .
http://www.raemultimedia.com/music/1-03_TheStoneCastleEpilogue.mp3
And this is the epilogue for one of the chapters from the second volume of "Extreme Gravity", which has more instruments and better sound production, although like the first volume it was done when I only was doing headphone mixing, which does not work so well as loudspeaker mixing, and is the reason that today I mix everything while listening to it played through amplified loudspeakers . . .
http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/Chapter_8_Epilogue.mp3
I have another set of chapters that I plan to record sooner or later, perhaps this year, for the third volume of "Extreme Gravity", but it depends on what I decide to do with some of the music projects I am doing--one of which is a rather unusual holiday album that features songs like "(She's Giving Me) Holiday Vibrations", "Happy Chinese New Year! (I'm Not Wearing Underpants)", and "Santa's Very Jolly", for sure . . .
For sure!
The next few chapters of "Extreme Gravity" provide a bit more information about the Spacetime Tunnel, Ogly-Nogly, ylgoN-ylgO, and the pair of black high-heel slippers with open toes and cute ankle straps, as well as the Slammers, the Grand Eye of Toll-Eh, the Great Ball of String, and the Universatone Galactic Radio with its Super Deluxe Broadcaster Master Microphone, which among other things makes it possible to conduct interstellar conversations with the Director of the Pretend FBI (Mevin Piffle [not his real name]) in a Victorian bathtub at the Drake Hotel in Chicago when he is using the mind of Bucky the Little Mutant Raccoon as a portal, which is the roundabout but fastest way one contacts the Tall Cowboy Wearing the Wide-Brimmed Hat to schedule a pickup on the Quantum Stagecoach when it is necessary for national security reasons to travel through a wormhole, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :)
P. S. This is an excerpt from "The Slammers Attack Ranivir!", which is one of the chapters in the third volume of "Extreme Gravity", for sure . . .
For sure! :)
Baldenario - I like your style. As a former member of NASA's Apollo program Ground Control in the late sixties and early seventies, and privy to privileged communications thereof, your statement "I am intrigued by the general parsimony that defines the current strategy for making information derived from Kepler Satellite data readily available to the public..." has much merit and may be applied to many aspects of government activity.
This article is clearly a false report by the typical left wing media. Every rational, thinking person knows from the Bible that God created the Earth 5,000 years ago and that a walking dead Jewish deity who was his own father although he always existed, commits suicide by cop, although he didn't really die, in order to give himself permission not to send you to an eternal place of torture that he created for you, but instead to make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood, and telepathically promise him you accept him as your master, so he can cleanse you of an evil force that is present in mankind because a rib-woman and a mud-man were convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. So obviously no other planets exists and there is definitely no life on them.
Unless all these planets are populated by vampires, werewolves, zombies, undeads, ghosts, demons... all of them living in a strange fog and moving around in flying saucers.
Ryan: Look at us, the self-styled human race; how can you say we are not fallen from what we were meant to be?
We've always been what we were meant to be. Either we evolve to something better or we die off.
Dude - Can I quote you?!
Great summary Ryan!
Bobkat - You ever notice how schizophrenic religous doctrine sounds? It is fantasy adopted by naive people to justify their lives/make them feel better about themselves.... well except for catholics, that's all hellfire and brimstone. Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?
Dennis! Of course!
Bobkat! The human race has survived so far because there were always more good people than bad people. It has nothing to do with religion, or God. Somehow, self consciousness breed guilt and a moral sense of what is good or bad. Ever seen chimps, or dogs, hide away when they do something bad? Why do they fear retribution if they have no consciousness of what they do? The more we evolve the more we tend to care for one another. In the 18th and 19th centuries, slaves did not liberate themselves only on their own, there were always enough people in the upper classes to fight for them as well, and together, they helped everyone change for the better. Socialism is a dirty word to many in the USA, but at heart, it's a noble cause. It's also about caring for one another. But just as in capitalism, it can be abused, it can be made to enslave instead of liberating. Religion is the worst invention of mankind, it's all about control, control of what you do, what you are and what you think. Our moral values cannot be imposed, they must be lived.
OMG Ryan you made me choke on my soda, Rib-Woman and Mud-Man priceless....
I hope you dont mind me stealing those words they are too good to pass up...
Good post, Ryan, but watch out. Your sarcasm is likely to be misunderstood by many readers.
Your knowledge of biblical writings is completely dumbfounded.First learn and then open your mouth,otherwise
insert foot,and continue to make yourself well,we already no the answer to that.Its to bad that your so called knowledge of biblical writings is just that.Grow up you do science no justification.
Ryan-1652512
bobkat -- Only a religious mind can look through such self-deprecated lenses in order to make a comment like that
<facepalm>
Why do we have to have these non-sequiturs about religion? They don't add anything to the discourse, nobody's mind is changed, and it just wastes time. For the most part, it all seems to me to be cathartic nonsense.
With regards to the topic at hand: planets smashing into each other? Cool! When are we going to get Daedelus (sp?) up and running so we can see the results firsthand?
when we find a circular, wormhole creating contraption that can take us to the ancients
Armando,
First things first. We need to find a stargate buried in the sands of Egypt, then we can go out and meet the aliens who will teach us how to build the Daedelus. :-)
Woot SG1 for the win!!!
I got dibs on Adria!!
FYI Atlantis is on Earth now, cant wait to see what happens next....
well played religious card there ryan! lol! with that in mind, perhaps one day we'll find the stargate that zeus, apollo, athena, ra, isis, buddha, allah, jesus, elvis and the predators came thru to deliver pandora's box to mud-man & rib-girl by the magic tree to give us the ability to deceive ourselves into believing we'll all have to die one day in order to live forever on their worlds. sounds like a raw deal to me. but seriously though, a great article alan! i love cosmic log so keep on giving us some great space stuff!!
they found a star with 5 plus planets, now two stars with planets also ...i dont think heaven is around there . keep looking iam sure its up there ...made of GOLD and SILVER ...shouldnt be that hard to find NOW !! ha...
The observations of the Universe should elaborate our understanding of reality. Yet a noticable percentage of humans still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. Another percentage still believe this is a Steady State Universe. Until Man accepts this Perpetual Finite Pulsating Universe, there is no way to experience the glory of eternal reoccuring life, uninhibited imagination, and love.
dont forget about the reptillians they need gold like we need 238