Posted on 07/13/2019 2:40:31 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The researchers suggest that this type of world may a result of large “hot Jupiter” exoplanets migrating toward their host star. Exoplanet surveys have detected several such planets, and it’s believed that they likely formed at a greater distance from their respective stars and then slowly crept inward.
When that happens, it’s possible that the change in gravitational forces would prompt large moons to break free from their existing orbits and become standalone worlds of their own. Computer simulations showed that this could indeed happen, and in those cases, the researchers believe we should call them ploonets.
Remarkably, our own Moon might one day become a ploonet itself. The Moon is slowly creeping away from Earth at a very slow rate, and it’s possible that it will eventually enter a much less stable orbit and even go solo. Future generations might see the birth of a ploonet happen before their very eyes.
(Excerpt) Read more at bgr.com ...
“There’s a moon in the sky and it’s called the Moon” - B-52s
Why do I keep getting the impression that the current generation of astronomers are all idiots?
“Ask not where the idiots are.
You’ll only get your feelings hurt.”
Stoned out of their minds. Same thing as you said, but still...
I always thought a ploonet is a little fountain French women use between customers.
The biddies use a bidet...
Science urinating on language.
Ha! That sounds about right!
A “ploonet” would also meet the qualifications for being a “dwarf planet”. Why do we need two terms, and how can you tell for certain that a dwarf planet is not actually a former moon? Pluto could be a former moon for all we know. So could Ceres.
Well, I did at one point strongly consider switching my major from physics to astronomy... then I met my future wife and knew I was going to have somewhere I’d rather be on a cold dark night.
Still, my estimation of Astronomers has declined precipitously since Pluto got demoted from being a planet (and the worst reason I heard was that it would require adding too many new planets/names for kids to remember). That only insults children’s intelligence, shuts them off from the thrill of discovery, and fails to give aspirations that they too, might one day discover a planet” I have no problem if it considered a dwarf planet as long as that’s something along the classification of planet, dwarf rather than a compromise honorific for a sub-planetary object. After that, came up with an inordinate number of other cutesy and goofy terms and pet-names (that often later on end up becoming permanent) instead of acting like adults and creating classifications that don’t sound asinine to their local clique. Don’t get me wrong they’ve made a lot of astonishing discoveries in the last 20 years, but I think a lot of the credit goes to engineers and astrophysicists for solving problems and creating technologies that make things like discovering exoplanets, not only possible, but routine.
Precisely my first thought.
“Science urinating on language.”
No kidding! I think it finally passed the point of the Linux geeks and their recursive acronyms (rather than naming an application that explains what the application actually does). I like Linux, but I’d love Linux if I didn’t have to put up with appalling application and utility names.
If I ever meet Richard Stallman I’m not going to know whether my urge to thank him or bitch slap him (for a lot more reasons than popularizing recursive acronyms among geeks) will win out.
They just can’t help themselves...
To all of those who still believe in the NASA tooth fairies, here’s a light-hearted ditty for SAturday night!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7kCkO1qbv8
So could we.
Very unlikely. “Dwarf planets” according to the new and improved definition, haven’t cleared their orbits. In other words, they didn’t form as a typical planet according to the Nebular Theory. That is, gradually coalescing from planetesimals in the same general orbit until they’re all eventually swept up into one single planet. By all appearances, that’s how the earth formed. Pluto and Ceres, both dwarf planets, are just parts of a larger collection, i.e. the Kuiper and asteroid belts, respectively. They never coalesced into a single object. They’re basically planetesimals, if Nebular Theory still applies.
I own many 70mm film photos the Earth and/or the moon. Many are first generation duplicates and a couple purport to be original photos from Apollo 10 and 11, given that they aren’t color corrected for the strong UV tint like my dups are I’m inclined to believe the claim though the auction went unnoticed and I didn’t pay excessive money for them (early on Nasa was not especially smart about saving this stuff and quite a bit of it entered the private market. My dad and a friend of his used to dumpster dive at Johnson Space Center and you would not believe the stuff they found when he was growing up including Saturn V blueprints on micro-fische, unfortunately his friend ended up with those and they eventually lost touch). I can answer the premise question of the song pretty easily, reason most photos of the Earth are fake is that it is extremely difficult to get the full Earth (in the sense of a full moon) on one shot for one of two reasons, and images of the full Earth are, for some reason desirable for marketing and media purposes. The first reason is that most recent spacecraft are too close to capture it all at once. The second applies mostly to Apollo, but also deep space probes and any satellites in very high orbit, in that a spacecraft or satellite in high orbit will usually have part of the Earth in shadow. I believe there’s a fairly recent satellite that far enough out to get a “full Earth” photo now, but only occasionally, and it’s launch (particularly, it’s first full Earth photo) was a very big deal. They definitely didn’t want to launch an Apollo mission when the Earth is full from the direction of the moon because it meant that the near side on the moon where the astronauts could land and communicate with Earth and still be able to see at the same time. That said, I never got the marketing/media importance of showing a full side of the Earth at once... maybe because the media are globalists and a full side of the Earth has some dumb symbolic meaning about inclusiveness. However, there are dozens of legit Apollo photos of a waxing or waning Earth where roughly half of the side of Earth that is facing the camera is in shadow.
Oh also, legit photos of the Earth tend to have a crapload of cloud cover, which probably also doesn’t create a whole lot of touchy-feely emotions about “global interconnectedness” compared to a comparatively few appropriately placed wisps, that don’t obscure the places in
Earth most cemented in liberals’ hearts and minds, they especially love their Europe-Africa-Middle East shots in recent decades, while in the past Americans preferred to see the good ol’ USA front and center.
No, no. It isn't working at all. Complete rewrite!
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