Posted on 08/26/2009 5:35:52 PM PDT by Daffynition
WASHINGTON — Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.
The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.
The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.
It is a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
See you next year!
lol
Has anyone called the Suicide Prevention Hotline on its behalf? Well, it has a million years before its demise, I guess there’s plenty of time...
Planetary System Formation [observed data challenges present theories]
Science | August 8, 2008 | J. C. B. Papaloizou
Posted on 09/08/2008 7:16:52 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2077835/posts
Jupiter-Like Planet Could Point to Another EarthThe primary discovery is a gas giant planet that circles a star called 55 Cancri every 13 years, comparable to Jupiter's 11.86-year orbit. The planet is between 3.5 and 5 times as heavy as Jupiter... The new planet orbits 55 Cancri at 5.5 astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun. Jupiter orbits at 5.2 AU. The same team had already spotted another planet around 55 Cancri, a place slightly less massive than Jupiter. It orbits so close to the star that it makes a complete orbit in just 14.6 days.
by Robert Roy Britt
13 June 2002
that’s the last of the related sidebar topics I plan to post, g’night!
Exoplanets Dance in the Same Plane [ Gliese 876 ]
Sky & Telescope | Friday, January 9, 2009 | Robert Naeye
Posted on 01/14/2009 8:37:24 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2164814/posts
Plus, you'd be hung over all the time, and hoarse from singing Auld Lang Syne.
Apocryphal, anthropological, asswipe; planets, rocks, stars aren’t living beings — they’re abstracts, not avatars.
To call it a "suicidal planet" is stupid.
There are natural forces at work, the planet itself isn't intentionaly self destructing.
With postal service being the way it is, perhaps the planet just found out Obama was elected last year.
We have always pondered the existence of life on other worlds. Perhaps this one is exclusively democrats.
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