Posted on 11/17/2014 9:39:21 AM PST by BenLurkin
Weve heard it time and time again. When it comes to new exoplanet findings, our conventional wisdom never holds. So the surprise that a batch of extrasolar planets are moving retrograde, orbiting in directions opposite to the way their stars are spinning, shouldnt come as a surprise.
Then again, maybe it should. These discoveries turned the long-standing view of how planets form on its head. Now Eduard Vorobyov at the University of Vienna and colleagues argue that chaotic conditions in the planetary systems gaseous wombs may be to blame.
Theorists have long assumed that stars and their planetary companions assemble from spinning disks of gas and dust. This causes the star to spin in one direction, while its planetary companions follow suit.
...
Recent simulations, however, suggest that clouds form within a turbulent environment and move like bees in a hive from one place to another, said Vorobyov.
So a moving cloud might end up in an environment thats quite different from the one it had at birth. It could even find itself surrounded by gas thats swirling opposite to its spin.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Oh great - now even planets can be born "gay"!
/mark
And then there’s my second son ...
Those may be wandering planets captured by a star’s gravity well — and they came in at an angle that made them retrograde.
Chaotic, gaseous wombs on a planetary scale, don't that just beat all. And here I thought that girl shrieking about the Earth's vagina being very angry was weird.
Militant feminists need better marketing, is all I've got to say. Applying it to planets just isn't working out.
He’s retrograde?? ;-)
That’s a good way to put it.
Wow, nice, thanks KoRn!
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