Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
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Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
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Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#2Maybe the actual sentient life in universe lives deep within those rogue worlds. It is also trivial for them to hop worlds - either wait for a flyby or put nuclear reactor on a blob of ices and drive away. They use stars as beacons and can't imagine anyone willing to live directly in the bonfire.
If they are using laser communication, our Sun will likely drown any signals in noise.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#3If there are that many Jupiter+ sized objects then how many rocky planet sized ones are there? Would they even be detectable via infrared or gravitational lensing?
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#4If there are that many Jupiter+ sized objects then how many rocky planet sized ones are there? Would they even be detectable via infrared or gravitational lensing?
I had a thought a while back about interstellar flight:
If there are a lot of massive objects out there (rogue planets, maybe primordial black holes) then these could be used to aid acceleration and deceleration through gravity assist and the Oberth effect. (The latter describes how you get more acceleration thrusting near a massive body.)
You could fly along with an ultra sensitive gravity telescope / sensor and hop between massive objects.
You could also perhaps harvest propellant from some of these.
Long duration interstellar flight would be easier if the space between solar systems was not as empty as we think.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#5Haha, I love uncensored quotes from scientists.
> “We know there’s a whole bunch of crap between stars,” Raymond said
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#6If there are that many Jupiter+ sized objects then how many rocky planet sized ones are there? Would they even be detectable via infrared or gravitational lensing?
Not many. Gas giants can form on their own, they have composition similar to interstellar material (mostly hydrogen and helium).
Rocky planets can only form in proto disks around newly forming stars. Heavier materials (carbon and up) are concentrated this way.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#7I think I commented this the last time it was posted, but I'm vain enough to post it again:
> Rather than answering this question, the JWST observation adds to the mystery: The telescope’s infrared eye found that dozens of the worlds appear to be in pairs orbiting each other — a puzzling arrangement that, if confirmed, would defy expectations.
> “We’re missing something,” said Nienke van der Marel, a researcher who studies planet formation at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, “and we don’t know what it is.”
> These improbable duos cannot be easily explained by any known formation theories of either stars or free-floating planets. But within a week of the JWST announcement, researchers published a daring new idea describing how giant planets might be ejected from their home system in pairs — an event most researchers had thought all but impossible. Whether or not the proposal can fully account for the entire zoo of dim, starless worlds remains to be seen.
Here's my scifi take on things: these pairworlds are engineered.
The whole "the galaxy should be settled by now" question has an answer: the galaxy is settled, but the people living there don't care to live close to suns - they prefer to live in planetary binaries sailing through the interstellar void, using the gravitational energy of the orbit to keep the cores of the planets in flux, generating internal heat for energy.
My understanding from the article is that these are mostly gas-giant, Jupiter-like pairs - so maybe these creatures live in those types of planets' atmospheres, and have developed the technology to pair up gas giant worlds and go traveling.
Maybe that's how most sentient life does it! Maybe we're half a million years away from our local Gas Giant Natives packing up their shit (Jupiter & Saturn, Neptune & Uranus) and fucking off to join the greater galactic community, leaving us in the dust to be clobbered by asteroids and other orbital disasters.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#8Maybe the actual sentient life in universe lives deep within those rogue worlds. It is also trivial for them to hop worlds - either wait for a flyby or put nuclear reactor on a blob of ices and drive away. They use stars as beacons and can't imagine anyone willing to live directly in the bonfire. If they are using laser communication, our Sun will likely drown any signals in noise.
It's a neat possibility for a science fiction author. I've seen the idea used a couple of times.
One of the key questions for life is where all the external energy to overcome entropy comes from. Being close to a star without being fried by it is a good way to accomplish this, but there are fewer easy energy sources on a rogue planet.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#9If there are that many Jupiter+ sized objects then how many rocky planet sized ones are there? Would they even be detectable via infrared or gravitational lensing?
I had a thought a while back about interstellar flight: If there are a lot of massive objects out there (rogue planets, maybe primordial black holes) then these could be used to aid acceleration and deceleration through gravity assist and the Oberth effect. (The latter describes how you get more acceleration thrusting near a massive body.) You could fly along with an ultra sensitive gravity telescope / sensor and hop…
I think gravity assists only really make sense when you're talking about orbits - a solitary object floating through the void won't help you accelerate, though it can help you make a cheaper "turn" in space.
Re: Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
#10Maybe the actual sentient life in universe lives deep within those rogue worlds. It is also trivial for them to hop worlds - either wait for a flyby or put nuclear reactor on a blob of ices and drive away. They use stars as beacons and can't imagine anyone willing to live directly in the bonfire. If they are using laser communication, our Sun will likely drown any signals in noise.
It's a neat possibility for a science fiction author. I've seen the idea used a couple of times. One of the key questions for life is where all the external energy to overcome entropy comes from. Being close to a star without being fried by it is a good way to accomplish this, but there are fewer easy energy sources on a rogue planet.
There's a couple of options; the most obvious one is radiothermal heating from radioactive elements in the core, or even just remnant heat from the core slowly working its way up. And if there are pairs of these, then their orbits might be keeping their cores moving and warm due to tides.