Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
thehindubusinessline.com
Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
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Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#2I don't always read pop science, but when I do, I read thehindubusinessline.com. Also, the illustration paired with the article screams Melancholia.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#3These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star?
Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#4These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
I read this brilliant short story once where the Earth had been 'stolen' by a massive rogue planet (the earth started to orbit it instead of the sun). A family had survived by building a air tight shelter and having a constant fire burning. They had to go out to fill up buckets with frozen oxygen to bring back and defrost.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#5It says that the image is a photo. Is that really so?
It says that the planet has a temperature of approx 400 degrees Celsius. That is hot. I would have expected it to be deadly cold, esp since it never managed to initiate nuclear reactions in its center. Why is that?
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#6These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
The planet was found to be between 50 and 120 millions years old, with a temperature of approximately 400 degrees Celsius, and a mass four to seven times that of Jupiter.
Not exactly sure what "temperature" refers to there, but Wikipedia tells me that Jupiter itself has a surface temperature of less than -100 degrees C. So even without a star, it's rather substantially warm. However, at Jupiter's distance, the solar radiation received from the sun is rather minimal anyway.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#7It says that the image is a photo. Is that really so? It says that the planet has a temperature of approx 400 degrees Celsius. That is hot. I would have expected it to be deadly cold, esp since it never managed to initiate nuclear reactions in its center. Why is that?
There's no way that's a photo, given that this is the best we can do of Ceres, a relatively close planetoid:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Ceres_opt...
UPDATE: Here's its wikipedia page. 100 light years way from earth, so there is no way it's a photo. Also, wikipedia calls it a brown dwarf, which would explain the temperature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFBDSIR2149-0403
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#8Would anyone like to explain why this planet would have a temperature of 400C (I was picturing it being really cold)? Is this because of its mass/size, more related to its gaseous composition or both?
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#9It says that the image is a photo. Is that really so? It says that the planet has a temperature of approx 400 degrees Celsius. That is hot. I would have expected it to be deadly cold, esp since it never managed to initiate nuclear reactions in its center. Why is that?
There's no way that's a photo, given that this is the best we can do of Ceres, a relatively close planetoid: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Ceres_opt... UPDATE: Here's its wikipedia page. 100 light years way from earth, so there is no way it's a photo. Also, wikipedia calls it a brown dwarf, which would explain the temperature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFBDSIR2149-0403
The source of the image, an European Southern Observatory press release (mentioned in the HBL article, linked in the Wikipedia article) gives it a title of "Artist’s impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9".
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#10Would anyone like to explain why this planet would have a temperature of 400C (I was picturing it being really cold)? Is this because of its mass/size, more related to its gaseous composition or both?
It's a brown dwarf:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFBDSIR2149-0403