Turning planetary theory upside down

ESO ^ | Apr 13, 2010 | Unknown

[decimon]

What's up, doc?

[decimon]

Corrigan ping.

[cripplecreek]

My personal theory is that there are a lot of free roaming planetary bodies in space that we don’t know about and they occasionally get captured as they pass a star.

[exDemMom]

I don’t know why it should be a surprise that some planets orbit their stars in the opposite direction.

To me, it’s rather silly to extrapolate all solar system observations to the entire universe, when there is a total of n=1 systems being observed. A workable hypothesis really cannot be developed on a basis of n=1.

[rstrahan]

they’re south of the galactic equator? LOL

[muawiyah]

Then there are the gas giants with rocky cores ~ like Jupiter. Presumably if they get too close to a young star the hydrogen and other light gases will boil off into space leaving behind only the rocky core, like Earth.

Notice that all the rocky planets (full size ones anyway) are close to the Sun in this system, while the gas giants (and even a myriad of baby size bodies of frozen gas) are way out there.

[Huebolt]

Which reminds me of a question: If you add up all the angular momentum of all the planets around the sun and that of the sun itself, that's a huge amount of energy. Where did it come from?

And why is it all in the same direction? It seems things falling into the sun's gravitational well would randomize in their contribution of potential energy to angular momentum. Instead, it all adds up in the same direction...

[silverleaf]

Will any be transiting our solar system anytime soon?

[decimon]

What I recall from physics is that the angle of the dangle...

[ShadowAce]

Instead, it all adds up in the same direction...

Kinda like it was designed....

[Huebolt]

Now I see, it's obvious! It's the coriolis force due to the rotation of the GALAXY! The same as water spinning down the drain due to the earth's rotation.

Now...why does the galaxy spin? Rotation of the Universe? Why does the Universe spin. Never mind.

[ShadowAce]

It would be interesting to be able to calculate exactly how fast we are moving in relation to an absolutely inert point.

ie--the rotation of the planet, combined with our orbit around the Sun, combined with the Solar System's orbit in the Milky Way, combined with the Milky Way's movement in the Universe.....

[Huebolt]

the rotation of the planet, combined with our orbit around the Sun, combined with the Solar System's orbit in the Milky Way

It's obvious too, that it will all add up to...2012 - right?

Seriously tho', it is only spin, or rotation, that keeps us all from being at the bottom of a gravity well somewhere, be it solar, galactic, or whatever.

[ShadowAce]

An previous acquaintance once asked why we don't all go flying off into space due to the rotation of the Earth.

I just shook my head...

[Huebolt]

That would be SOME spin. Maybe a two-minute day?

[ShadowAce]

yeah—the concept of gravity just didn’t enter his head.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

According to this approximately 1,342,000 mi/hr - relative to the Universe, which could be moving as well, but so far no one has found a way to measure that.

[Huebolt]

That was a good Red Green bit: Red has built a huge kluge invention and says to his nephew,

"You want to have a look at this and see if there's anything I didn't take into account?"

The nephew sneers and replies, "You mean like GRAVITY?"

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon!

When these new results were combined with earlier observations of transiting exoplanets astronomers were surprised to find that six out of a larger sample of 27 were found to be orbiting in the opposite direction to the rotation of their host star -- the exact reverse of what is seen in our own solar system.

I guess no one there got the memo that the KBOs found so far have been on wacky orbits, suggesting they were hurled out by interaction(s) with other bodies -- and for that matter, that most of the planet Jupiter's 60+ known moons orbit in retrograde, a status often considered diagnostic of capture. The so-far unknown outer planets of our own system will be found to be moving in retrograde.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon! A two-list ping!

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