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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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