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.

[whattajoke]

Old Planet Ping

[Doctor Stochastic]

Well, the fight is against the legitimacy of scientific inquiry, not just against evolution. The Creationists and the PostModern-Deconstructionists have identical agendas. Both want to replace scientific inquiry by their own subjective feelings.

[AD from SpringBay]

Colorizing images is not based on imagination, any more that a graph of data is based on imagination. In both cases, data is translated from raw numbers to a form we can better understand.

Do you agree that all translating includes an element of interpretation? BTW - I like the pretty colors. I think they sell more Newsweeks and stuff.

[BMCDA]

LOL!! Don't want to know what illegal substance influenced the imagination of the guy who colorized this image ;^)

[kjam22]

The IRS should make a little check box on 1040 that says "what percent of your taxes do you want to go to astronomy and or study of the universe." And I would be very much in favor of all those dollars that people choose to spend on it going there.

[AndrewC]

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.

8.85771E-34

[razorbak]

I believe the biblical account of Creation. And I would reject evolution regardless of what the Bible says, on scientific grounds alone. But the Bible nowhere even attempts to say how old the earth is. I don't hold to the day-age theory that some do concerning the days of creation. But I'm not referring to that. I'm talking about when God created the matter and energy that make up the universe.

[balrog666]

The IRS should make a little check box on 1040 that says "what percent of your taxes do you want to go to astronomy and or study of the universe." And I would be very much in favor of all those dollars that people choose to spend on it going there.

Sure. And add checkoffs for the DOD, DOE, DOS, CIA, FBI, ATF, etc. so I can spend my tax dollars on what I want. Too bad it's a "probability zero" event.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The same suggestion has been made by others.

What % of your tax dollars do you want to go to the military?

What % of your tax dollars do you want to go to foreign aid?

What % of your tax dollars do you want to go to Homeland Security?

What % of your tax dollars do you want to go to airline subsidies?

Etc.



What % of your tax dollars

[kjam22]

Yep.... Designated funds. A scary thought for those on capitol hill.

[Aric2000]

Reject evolution on "scientific" grounds?

That's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.

[Jeff Gordon]

What % of your tax dollars...

Now that would be a good test for liberals vs conservatives. Add up the total percentages they allocate. If the total is over 100%, they are liberal. Otherwise they are conservative.

[Doctor Stochastic]

If the total is over 100%, they are liberal.

That's OK. Just have them responsible for their own shortfall.

[js1138]

Do you agree that all translating includes an element of interpretation?

Dose drawing a line graph from a dataset involve interpretation? Possibly. But you can reconstrict the data from the graph if you include an indicator of the data points.

The colorized image is a reversable transform of the data points.

[js1138]

The IRS should make a little check box on 1040 that says "what percent of your taxes do you want to go to astronomy and or study of the universe." And I would be very much in favor of all those dollars that people choose to spend on it going there.

I'll vote for that. But it should include all government spending.

[js1138]

About ten years ago the United Way had a huge financial scandal. The next year the corporate donation forms included a dozen pages of check-offs for how you wanted your money spent. They had general categories, narrow categories, and programs right down to the street addresses of day care centers.

[js1138]

Dose=does.

[PatrickHenry]

P L A C E M A R K E R

[MitchellC]

What the devilare you talking about? You have to be religious fanatic in order to be conservative? You have to be a fundamentalist in order to have a consistent worldview? Where do you live? Geez? You sir, need to get a grip.

You, sir, need to learn how to read.

The YECs at least have a worldview that involves 1.) a universal standard of morality and 2.) purpose to human existence, which no atheist can have.

Those beliefs aren't unique to YECs, and I wasn't implying that they were. Sure, you can be "conservative" - whatever THAT really means these days - and not be a YEC. But you can't call it consistent to say that humanity exists without a pre-ordained purpose and that YOU somehow have any 'rights' that anyone else ought to recognize.

No wonder so many non-theists are leftists. They're being a little more consistent.

[RadioAstronomer]

Thanks for the ping! :-) Interesting read.