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starship-design: Re: New 'rebel' planet found



At 10:10 AM 10/25/96, Mark Schlegel wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39 wrote:
>
>> New 'rebel' planet found outside solar system It's 'roller-coaster
>>orbit' stuns
>>  scientists
>>
>>        October 23, 1996
>>         Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EDT
>>
>> TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- A new planet that
>> breaks all the rules about how and where
>> planets form has been identified in orbit of a
>> twin star about 70 light years from Earth in a
>> constellation commonly known as the
>>  Northern Cross.
>>
>> The new planet has a roller-coaster like orbit that swoops down close to
>> its central star and then swings far out into frigid fringes,
>> following a strange  egg-shaped orbit that is unlike that of any other
>> known planet.
>> "We don't understand how it could have formed in such an orbit," said
>>  William D. Cochran, head of University of Texas team that discovered
>>  the planet at the same time that a group from San Francisco State found
>>  it independently.
>
>This is a really weird discovery, the best planet formation theory
>I think are the disk/planetesimal theories in which a disk of
>dust and gas condenses to small bodies that collide and stick to
>form planetesimals and then later protoplanets and planets.
>The model predicts that the final orbits be relatively circular
>because it's difficult for the original disk of dust and gas to have
>any radial motion for any length of time since the gas/dust rubs
>together and the motion circularizes.  You would have to have the
>large bodies forming so fast that they could lock in the eccentric
>motion or planets form some other way.  Odd planet rotations in our
>system (like Uranus rotating on it's side at inclination 97 degrees
>or whatever) are currently modeled as due to huge 'finishing up'
>collisions between the last and largest protoplanets (like
>Uranus getting hit obliquely by a Mar's sized object that
>resulted in it's final spin being at 97).  This eccentric planet
>will bother a lot of theorists and will stoke the oddball
>astro theories on the internet (go read some Abian or "ludwig
>plutonium" on Sci.astro and you'll see what I mean)
>
>Mark


The universe is a violent place. PLanets get blasted around all over the
place.  Its thought our Moon was the result of a Mars sized planet blasting
into the proto earth.  I've no idea what could have rolled Uranus over on
its side.  Turbulance in the disk?

This is one of the reasons I never took to seriously the people who were
SURE multi-star systems couldn't have planets.  We have no idea how other
star systems formed, we can't really figure out this one jelled.

Kelly


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Kelly Starks                    Phone: (219) 429-7066    Fax: (219) 429-6859
Sr. Systems Engineer                                     Mail Stop: 10-39
Hughes defense Communications
1010 Production Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46808-4106
Email:  kgstar@most.fw.hac.com
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