Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Our researchers have made a breakthrough! => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 12:56:24 am

Title: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 12:56:24 am

Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Reuters
By Irene Klotz  1 hour ago


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/5.xdPyBHBNgG8d72_VGpNQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQ1MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-06-02T222511Z_1_LYNXMPEA510U2_RTROPTP_2_ASTRONOMY-EXOPLANET.JPG)
The newly discovered "mega-Earth" Kepler-10c dominates the foreground in this artist's conception released by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 2, 2014. REUTERS/David A. Aguilar/Center for Astrophysics/Handout via Reuters



BOSTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have discovered a new type of rocky planet beyond the solar system that weighs more than 17 times as much as Earth while being just over twice the size, scientists said on Monday.

The so-called "mega-Earth" circles a very old star called Kepler-10, which is located about 560 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Draco.

The discovery, announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston, was a surprise since planets that big were believed to be mostly gas, not solid rocky bodies like Earth or Mars, said physicist Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative.

Scientists do not yet understand how the planet, known as Kepler-10c, formed. It has a diameter of about 18,000 miles (29,000 km), 2.3 times greater than Earth's.

"A mega-Earth is a lot of solids concentrated in the same place without any gas. That is a problem because our understanding for how planets form requires the solids to get together in an environment where almost 99 percent of the mass ... is hydrogen and helium," Sasselov told reporters at a press conference.

Smaller solid bodies, like Earth or Mars, which are believed to form from leftover materials, take less time to pull themselves together. With a longer incubation time, large planets should gather up massive amounts of gas in the process – or so scientists thought.

However, mega-Earths formed, the discovery of another type of rocky world bodes well in the search for life beyond Earth, Sasselov added.

"As far as we know - and we know very little about origins of life - we think the emergence of life from geochemistry," occurs on solid planets, Sasselov said.

Related research shows that about 75 percent of the planets found with NASA's Kepler space telescope are less than four times Earth’s diameter.

In the solar system, there is nothing between the size of Earth, the largest rocky planet, and Neptune, the smallest gas giant with a diameter nearly four times Earth's.

"We really want to know about these planets,” astronomer Lars Buchhave, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told reporters.

"Are they rocky planets with a thin, compact atmosphere like the Earth, or are they rocky cores with some sort of extended hydrogen-helium envelope and where there is really no surface?" he said.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/astronomers-discover-type-rocky-planet-much-bigger-earth-222511780.html (http://news.yahoo.com/astronomers-discover-type-rocky-planet-much-bigger-earth-222511780.html)

---

A) This article displays insufficient understanding of geometry - twice the diameter makes for eight times the size, I believe.

B) I don't know why no one seems to consider the that difference in light pressure between an inner stellar system and the outer parts around a new star may make a huge difference in the amount of gas available for protoplanets to accrete as they form.

Title: Scientists Have Discovered A Planet They Thought Was Impossible
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 02:53:16 am

Scientists Have Discovered A Planet They Thought Was Impossible
Business Insider
By Leslie Baehr  8 hours ago


(http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Scientists_Have_Discovered_A_Planet-b3daa1b1b7f942d02d655f3db0f2c3bc)
David A. Aguilar (CfA)


The "Godzilla of Earths!" is in the foreground. Behind it is the smaller 'lava world'. Their sun, in the back, appears to have been created only 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

Based on what we know about how solar systems form, researchers thought that a giant rocky planet could not exist. But they just found one that's 17 times Earth's mass. They're calling it the Mega-Earth.

Scientists say the new planet may have "profound implications for the possibility of life" on extra-solar planets, according to a press release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. They announced the finding in a talk at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston.

Researchers have always thought Mega-Earths were impossible since any planets that big would attract hydrogen gas, forming a gas planet like Jupiter.


Meet the Mega-Earth

Mega-Earth, also known as Kepler-10c, is 18,000 miles in diameter and 2.3 times as large as Earth. It appears to be as solid as the planet beneath our feet.

Kepler-10c was previously known to astronomers, but they had not yet measured its mass. Due to its size — 2.3 times that of Earth — it was assumed to be a "mini-Neptune," a planet encased in thick gas. But the new observations have confirmed that it is rocky, not gassy.

It orbits an 11 billion-year-old star named Kepler-10 located 560 light years away from Earth. Its year lasts only 45 days.

Interestingly, this solar system is more than twice as old as our own — it was born less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

"We were very surprised when we realized what we had found," study researcher Xavier Dumusque, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a press release.

We've always thought a rocky planet is the best place to look for life, since life on a gas giant is hard to imagine. From what they've observed, the planet may also have an atmosphere with thin clouds, another good sign.


A mysterious system

Researchers had previously thought that this kind of planet impossible.

Not only did they think something that big would be a gas giant, but they didn't even think the elements that make up a rocky planet existed in our universe when this solar system was born: The early universe had only the lighter elements of hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements were forged from these lighter ones in stars over billions of years.

Because of this, many scientists hadn't been looking for rocky planets in these very old solar systems.

"Finding Kepler-10c tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought. And if you can make rocks, you can make life," study researcher Dimitar Sasselov, of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, said in a release.

The mega-Earth isn't the only weird planet in its solar system. There's also a 'lava-world' 1.5 times Earth's size whose year lasts only 20 hours.


http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-discovered-planet-thought-impossible-170448463.html (http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-discovered-planet-thought-impossible-170448463.html)

---

More bad math.  Must've been a screw-up in the press release...

Also, 3 billion years is plenty of time for heavier elements to form - you just know the very first generation of stars were ungodly huge, many with lifespans easily in the hundred of millions of years.

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Geo on June 03, 2014, 03:41:59 pm

And again, you're late to the party.  :whistle:

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 04:05:41 pm

This is not a measuring contest, and mine are in the right forum, besides.  Good to know that matters to you more than the stuff I pointed out...

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:10:08 pm

It looks like a form of stealing to me. :stop:
Regarding forum, appearantly what you consider a breakthrough is for me a step towards the stars. :P

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 04:13:12 pm

Does not compute.

Do you have anything to say about the science?

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:15:57 pm

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 04:13:12 pm

Do you have anything to say about the science?

Quote

I had to think of the novel "Big planet" by Jack Vance when reading this.

 :P

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 04:20:18 pm

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 12:56:24 am

---

A) This article displays insufficient understanding of geometry - twice the diameter makes for eight times the size, I believe.

B) I don't know why no one seems to consider the that difference in light pressure between an inner stellar system and the outer parts around a new star may make a huge difference in the amount of gas available for protoplanets to accrete as they form.

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 02:53:16 am

---

More bad math.  Must've been a screw-up in the press release...

Also, 3 billion years is plenty of time for heavier elements to form - you just know the very first generation of stars were ungodly huge, many with lifespans easily in the hundred of millions of years.

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:50:46 pm

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 12:56:24 am

A) This article displays insufficient understanding of geometry - twice the diameter makes for eight times the size, I believe.

B) I don't know why no one seems to consider the that difference in light pressure between an inner stellar system and the outer parts around a new star may make a huge difference in the amount of gas available for protoplanets to accrete as they form.

A) size, or volume? Don't know if this has the same meaning in English as in Dutch.
B) technically, protoplanets accrete by taking in 'dust'. The 'gaseous' stuff becomes atmosphere. Less 'dust' is available the further you go out from a (proto)star, or more precise, its less concentrated.

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 04:20:18 pm

More bad math.  Must've been a screw-up in the press release...

Also, 3 billion years is plenty of time for heavier elements to form - you just know the very first generation of stars were ungodly huge, many with lifespans easily in the hundred of millions of years.

[/quote]

Those ungodly huge stars (hundreds of solar masses) barely had time to form before reaching End Of Life, and had a lifespan of only a few million years, not hundreds.

Title: Re: Astronomers discover type of rocky planet much bigger than Earth
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 03, 2014, 05:02:40 pm

Quote from: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:50:46 pm

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 12:56:24 am

A) This article displays insufficient understanding of geometry - twice the diameter makes for eight times the size, I believe.

B) I don't know why no one seems to consider the that difference in light pressure between an inner stellar system and the outer parts around a new star may make a huge difference in the amount of gas available for protoplanets to accrete as they form.

A) size, or volume? Don't know if this has the same meaning in English as in Dutch.

Well both, being very closely related concepts.  I'm not sure there's any significant distinction in this context.  The planet is far more than twice as big in three dimensions.

Quote from: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:50:46 pm

B) technically, protoplanets accrete by taking in 'dust'. The 'gaseous' stuff becomes atmosphere. Less 'dust' is available the further you go out from a (proto)star, or more precise, its less concentrated.

And the gaseous particles are lighter and more effected by light pressure.  Pretty intuitive, and we're talking about very close-in orbits.

Quote from: Geo on June 03, 2014, 04:50:46 pm

Quote from: BUncle on June 03, 2014, 04:20:18 pm

More bad math.  Must've been a screw-up in the press release...

Also, 3 billion years is plenty of time for heavier elements to form - you just know the very first generation of stars were ungodly huge, many with lifespans easily in the hundred of millions of years.

Those ungodly huge stars (hundreds of solar masses) barely had time to form before reaching End Of Life, and had a lifespan of only a few million years, not hundreds.

Which only underlines my point even more.  I was being conservative without bothering to look it up.