Posted on 05/18/2011 8:47:19 PM PDT by Redcitizen
Astronomers have discovered a whole new class of alien planet: a vast population of Jupiter-mass worlds that float through space without any discernible host star, a new study finds.
While some of these exoplanets could potentially be orbiting a star from very far away, the majority of them most likely have no parent star at all, scientists say.
And these strange worlds aren't mere statistical anomalies. They likely outnumber "normal" alien planets with obvious parent stars by at least 50 percent, and they're nearly twice as common in our galaxy as main-sequence stars, according to the new study.
Astronomers have long predicted the existence of free-flying "rogue alien planets." But their apparent huge numbers may surprise many researchers, and could force some to rethink how the planets came to be.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I guess I will forgo my unifying theory.
God.
Current thinking is that quantum goofiness created irreguralirtities in what we observe. I don’t know about that. Last I heard was that Schrödinger’s cat is still dead. Or maybe not.
Just out of curiosity, how would spaghettification on a vast scale look different from an expanding universe?
These things are beyond me.
“That’s no moon, it’s a space station.”
If I was Lord Emperor, it would be one of many moons.
All pointed out.
/got the SW ref, of course...
The two are not incompatible.
Of course not.
Well, not necessarily I wouldn't think. If there was a big bang, we don't know how matter was hurled or exactly what happened, if it was simultaneous or in bursts, but it would depend on the initial torque placed on the various masses of discrete matter by the explosion. I'm trying to think for an analogy a number of tops spinning but can't. A human can only set two spinning at once but one clockwise and one counterclockwise, doesn't work anyway, no invisible force.
It seems logical to me that there would be planets or other astrophysical matter that hasn't yet been captured into orbit by any star or any other object's gravitational field. I don't know if it's been proven but it was postulated that the moon was captured by the earth's gravitational field.
Now I have a question. Logic tells me that a big bang or universal wear and tear would make the objects spherical. Is that true? Would they have to be or could they be other shapes?
Can spin be reversed or stopped?
My logic is faulty and I tend to think in terms of a three-dimensional universe with an added fourth which would be time.
The big bang was probably the opposite of what might become the late great black hole suckup. I know I'm showing my ignorance lol. Maybe the big bang is ongoing.
You and darned near everyone else.
Oh, I agree. Why I’m back to being a Christian after starting that way and going through (too long to type on my BB) many belief systems including atheism.
/Graduate level engineer/physicist, among other degrees...
Didn't she used to have a talk show on CNN ?
If they are traveling through any particular solar system at a speed faster than the escape velocity of the system, then they would not be captured. Only if they are already going slow, or if they are slowed through a "slingshot" effect, could they be captured. And if they were created out beyond the orbit of any star, in the galactic spaces, they would be traveling that fast.
Most intriguingly, it’s been suggested in that past that dark matter is nothing other than regular baryonic matter in the form of “rogue” planets, asteroids, et al that might be far more prevalent in interstellar space than anyone suspected. Of course, physicists have been far more active developing exotic theories of matter (which are far more interesting) - but this study at least on the surface seems to bolster the more mundane explanation.
I gotta get to bed.
I wont get the unifying theory worked out tonight.
Back at em in the morning.
Even when on a vast scale, spaghettification exerts force in two opposite directions...whereas the expansion of the universe is taking place in every direction.
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Sure. I don’t see its relevance to the Big Bang ie “Let There Be Light.”
Just as likely to have been perturbed away from an orbit around a star, and gone off into interstellar space.
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