new planet

[Athena]

Hubble Confirms Young Planet at Nearby Star
posted: 22 June 2005 1:00 p.m. ET EDT

"The investigation is important because the Fomalhaut (Fo-mal-ought) system is thought to resemble our own solar system when it was about 200 million years old (ours is now 4.6 billion years old). Astronomers have a theoretical model for how the planets formed, but only by looking at young solar systems can they confirm that the process played out as expected".

You can read this story and more at http://Space.com/

It is kind of fun to think about the promise of the world made a new, and one actually being made only 25 light years from us.

[Prometheus]

Oh I have an idea! In 2 billion years we can go there and get a front row seat to abiogenesis, or whatever happens. Maybe we can catch god in the act.

You'd have to be carefull though - drop a turn in the ocean and you screw the whole thing up.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Actually this is very intersting, we can see how everything kinda runs together, and as we make better telescopes, we can find and watch other solor systems in the various stages of development to compare what we know about how things work to how they really work.

Definiantly facinating.

[Technosoul]

How do they determine the age of a planet?

[Nono]

Here's a question:

Since they're still able to see only very large objects, they've been finding a number of Jupiter-size planets very close to the stars around which they orbit. These can't be terrestrial planets, can they? They're way to big for that, aren't they? But how could a gas giant be that close to a star without its gas being vaporized off into space?

[Samildanach]

How do they determine the age of a planet?

If you are religious you write a book choose an arbitrary age, build a philosophy and a few myths around it and thats the true age of the planet. :)

[Autolykos]

Quote by: Nono Here's a question: Since they're still able to see only very large objects, they've been finding a number of Jupiter-size planets very close to the stars around which they orbit. These can't be terrestrial planets, can they? They're way to big for that, aren't they? But how could a gas giant be that close to a star without its gas being vaporized off into space?

Good question. I've wondered about that myself. They don't actually see these planets; rather, they detect them by looking at stars' "gravitational wobbles". You see, a moon does not really revolve around a planet -- they both revolve around a common center of gravity. The same thing holds true for a star and her planets. What I find myself skeptical of is how accurate extrapolations they can get from the wobbles they detect. Have they looked at the Sun and measured how much she wobbles? I don't know. But it would be interesting if they did look at her and their models said she should have a massive Jupiter-plus world orbiting closer than Mercury! :)

Does anyone know more about this?

- Rob

[Nono]

Yeah, I'd like to hear more from an informed source. I believe I've read that they have now seen (as opposed to inferred) large planets. (But what the hell do I know? :confused: )

[Nono]

OK, have checked magazine and it does contain two (count 'em!) photos of such planets, taken by the "Very Big Telescope" in the Chilean Andes (it must indeed be a big bugger, eh?).