NASA: Planet Formed 13 Billion Years Ago

Yahoo! News ^ | 7/10/03 | Deborah Zabarenko - Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The oldest planet ever detected is nearly 13 billion years old and more than twice the size of Jupiter, locked in orbit around a whirling pulsar and a white dwarf, astronomers said on Thursday.

Compared with the relative youth and stability of our own celestial neighborhood, where Earth and the other planets orbit a single 5-billion-year-old star in a quiet neighborhood of the Milky Way, the ancient group that holds the oldest planet has had a boisterous past, scientists said at a NASA (news - web sites) briefing.

The old planet is located near the heart of a globular star cluster some 5,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, about the distance light travels in a year.

Globular clusters were generally thought to be lousy environments for forming planets, because the clusters coalesced so early in the universe's development that the heavier elements needed to make planets were not yet present in abundance.

This finding, made with data from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites), indicates that even globular clusters can produce planets despite the small amount of heavy elements, said Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University.

FIRST GENERATION PLANET

"What we think we've found is an example of the first generation of planets formed in the universe," Sigurdsson said. "We think this planet formed with its star, 12.713 billion years ago when the (Milky Way) galaxy was very young, just in the process of forming."

By comparison, Earth and the rest of our solar system is a third-generation affair, made from gas that was polluted by the ashes of earlier generations of stars. And the sun is off by itself, not interacting directly with any other stars.

But globular clusters are like crowded marketplaces, with stars so close together they are forced to interact. That meant that the old planet went along for the ride, Sigurdsson said.

After forming around a sun-like star, the old planet was dragged with the star toward the core of the globular cluster. Then the planet was pulled toward a neutron star and its companion, enmeshing all four bodies into a tangle of orbits.

The neutron star grabbed the sun-like star and the old planet and booted its original companion into space. In time, the planet's star aged into a red giant and then into a white dwarf, a dying star that can only shine with stored heat.

The neutron star evolved into a fast-whirling pulsar and changes in how it spun helped scientists determine that one of the three cosmic objects dancing in space was a planet, said Harvey Richer of the University of British Columbia.

The old planet is too far away to be directly observed, but because it exerts a slight gravitational tug on the pulsar it orbits, scientists figured out its mass and position based on its pull on the pulsar, Richer said.

The old planet is among more than 100 planets detected outside our solar system.

[NormsRevenge]

Thu Jul 10, 4:29 PM ET

A rich starry sky fills the view from an ancient gas-giant planet in the core of the globular star cluster M4, as imagined in this artist's concept. The 13-billion-year-old planet orbits a helium white-dwarf star and the millisecond pulsar B1620-26, seen at lower left. The globular cluster is deficient in heavier elements for making planets, so the existence of such a world implies that planet formation may have been quite efficient in the early universe. REUTERS/NASA (news - web sites)

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[meandog]

Considering that it is 5,600 light years away; it probably doesn't exist any longer--relatively speaking, of course!

[Michael Barnes]

Gonna keep an eye on this thread..once the young earth one's show up, this should get interesting..

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[11th Earl of Mar]

I would think NASA would be spending this time and money on finding out the cause of the Columbia explosion.

[thegreatbeast]

In your lifetime this estimate will be revised at least once a year. Along with archeological finds that reorder our conception of the age of Man. (The Leakeys are good for one themselves each year.)

[goodseedhomeschool]

MOre linear age assumptions placemarker

[Lockbar]

"The oldest planet ever detected is nearly 13 billion years old and more than twice the size of Jupiter, locked in orbit around a whirling pulsar and a white dwarf"

Ok, so where do we insignificant humans on Earth fit into this picture? ;-)

[Prodigal Son]

once the young earth one's show up, this should get interesting..

Oh, you've done it now... ;-)

[Michael Barnes]

LOL...surely you jest..

[Prodigal Son]

Surely I jest what? ;-)

[jlogajan]

Considering that it is 5,600 light years away; it probably doesn't exist any longer--relatively speaking, of course!

Actually, that's only about a 1000 years older than the first pyramids. No big deal age wise. I don't think pulsars or white dwarves have short life spans.

[Orangedog]

I'll watch this one too. I've never seen the young-earth types in action on one of these threads before. I'm guessing that their position is that the earth is only about 6000 years old, give or take a millenia. The ones who so vehemently defend that if it's not in the Bible, it didn't happen have always intrigued me. I'm by no means an atheist, but I'm also under no impression that God was obligated to tell us everything about the universe when the Bible was written.

[longshadow]

1st generation planet in M4 PING!

[ALASKA]

"It's only a model"

[js1138]

ping

[Willie Green]

"It's only a model"

I bet you wouldn't say that about Cindy Crawford, Kathy Ireland or Elle MacPhearson.

[Michael Barnes]

I think you have squarely hit it on the head..

[RadioAstronomer]

Way cool! Thanks for the ping :-)