Astronomers Find a Planet Denser Than Lead (And The Size of Jupiter)

reply to post by AceWombat04


exactly, anything is possiblé but also more likely than not improbablé.

reply to post by Brainiac


Very cool, and interesting article... and Brainiac, I will freely admit to being ignorant on many subjects, as well as many levels..
And I use the term ignorant as to mean "lack of knowledge" not to be confused with arrogance, or stupidity.. LOL..
one of my 6th grade teachers explained the differance between ignorance and "stupidity" to me (decades ago) this way.
"If a young child (baby, toddler etc.) puts thier hand on a hot stove and burns themselves, that is ignorance, Ie. they don't know anybetter. But if an adult does it that is "stupidity".. the "ignorant" person is able to learn from the experiance. the "stupid" person will not.. and the "arrogant" person already knows the consequences but does not think it applies to them so does it anyway"
I just thought that was a decent explanation of the common meanings of those terms.. And I have no problem with admitting to being very ignorant. But I am trying to learn..

[edit on 5-12-2009 by SideWynder]

reply to post by AceWombat04


"Accept everything as a possibility, accept nothing as truth" is fine if it's your fancy, and it can be fun to make baseless theories to give others something to ponder. However, it's not a scientifically sound way to approach things.

The "you never know" arguement is irrefutable to begin with and only serves as a proponent to ignorance. What we known is all we have to go by, and we have to form some sort of basic truth to expand our knowledge from. Sure that basic truth may be perceived differently as we understand more, but to completely ignore it and follow your imagination is fiction, not science.

Maybe it's a planet made of gold. That'd be worth some money. I hereby claim the gold planet, i'll have to file some papers.

reply to post by poet1b


I think you asked very good questions.

My opinion -- the planet wouldn't necessarily have to be composed of elements more dense than lead -- it would just have to be more ... compacted..... it could be a plasma planet, for example. I don't know if plasma planets exist..... If the interstecies between crystal matrices were filled, that would qualify as sufficiently dense and massive, regardless of the actual elemental composition.

Thank you for questions that lead to more questions, and perhaps a different way of looking at things.

Originally posted by Brainiac

Originally posted by Bspiracy
Nothing can survive?
Don't you feel a TAD arrogant with that statement?

b

no he shouldn't. if you know anything about astrophysics, you'd make the conclusion that nothing could possibly exist on that planet... It's so dense that it's gravity probably wouldn't even allow air to float...

anything there would be liquified...

if you think in realistic scales and not magical fairytale realms of thought, you can understand just how rare life is, and how difficult a habitable planet is to find...

I think it would be accurate to say that "life as we know it" could not survive on such a planet. Life as we are unaware of? Perhaps. NO way of saying with any certainty.

Originally posted by xalaran
if its orbit has been calculated to 4 days then its a pretty good guess its well on its way to having a close encounter with its star. earth is moving towards the sun although a very slow pace but we are getting closer even the moon is getting closer to us we may not notice it but it is.

Not sure where you get your information, because that is not right at all. The moon is moving away from the earth and has been for a long long time.

They even have shows on the science channel talking about how the earth would change if/when we lose the moon.

You know, originally "Superman" was not so super. In the start of Superman, he was just a really really super strong person. He didn't fly, he could just jump really high(able to "leap" tall buildings, not fly around).

The reason for his super strength was because his home planet was much more dense, so what is average strength on his home planet was super strength here due to gravity changes.

His abilities grew over the years.

Reading about this planet made me think about that.

Why is it referred to a planet rather than a brown dwarf? Isn't 21 Jupiter masses enough to fuse deuterium?

Originally posted by somedude
reply to post by AceWombat04

 

"Accept everything as a possibility, accept nothing as truth" is fine if it's your fancy, and it can be fun to make baseless theories to give others something to ponder. However, it's not a scientifically sound way to approach things.

It's scientifically sound to remain open to possibilities which have yet to be scientifically proved to be false. It's only scientifically unsound to assert those possibilities as facts.

The "you never know" arguement is irrefutable to begin with and only serves as a proponent to ignorance.

If it's irrefutable, then it isn't ignorant in my opinion, but rather self evident.

What we known is all we have to go by, and we have to form some sort of basic truth to expand our knowledge from.

Yes, and for it to be scientific and genuinely skeptical, that truth - however incorrect it may later turn out to be - must be based on proof and evidence. There is no proof that it is absolutely impossible for some form of life to exist in such an environment. There is evidence that it is improbable, however.

Sure that basic truth may be perceived differently as we understand more, but to completely ignore it and follow your imagination is fiction, not science.

It is my opinion that people use the terms scientific and skeptical too loosely. These are methods, and they are rigid and inflexible, but they allow for open-mindedness as well. The true scientist and skeptic cannot make the assertion that something is impossible without proving it (which would require that we visit and examine every planet in the entire universe, in this particular case.) If they do, then they are in fact not being scientific or skeptical at all. Then they are the ones following their imaginations and adopting what may merely be fiction for all they know.

They can however hypothesize that it is impossible. Unfortunately, that isn't a hypothesis we can prove at present. Therefore it can't be asserted as a fact. Possibilities (not factual realities) are therefore self evidence until proved otherwise.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
reply to post by St Udio

 

No, the wobble is definitely going to be due to an external body tugging at the star.

Anything on the star's surface heavy enough to cause a wobble would have been sucked into the core of the star fairly quickly.

i counter with two points -

A 'Dark Spot' would have no mass... its just a solar storm related to extremely strong magnetic activity anomalies.

actually...theres no 2nd point because my theoretical explaination covers both the 'darkness' period
AND the 'Apparent' wobble effect
(which is a visual misconception as to cause=== the same 'sunspot' can give the illusion that the Sun's surface is undergoing tidal effects, resulting in the incorrect conclusion that there is an actual/physical Wobble of the mass of the Star object... rather than just the fluxuation of the photons being emmited by the light-producing Star)

thanks .... for taking me to task

reply to post by Alaskan Man


Nothing?

Oh i dunno.. i mean you live in a universe with no end

kinda ironic

what has happend to peoples critical thinking skills???

Monty python sketch time i think...

Man: wow i love being alive
Man2: yeah its amazing!!
Man: remind me again why we are here?
Man2: that bloke god made us
Man: Oh ok..
Man: so we know it all right?
Man2: Yep we are special
Man: sweet
Man2: did you know that nothing can survive in space
Man: space? wtf is that??
Man2: its like some big vast nonthing thing filled with everything!!
Man: Ohhh ok "pause"
Man: So how the hell did we get here then?
Man2: Dunno..

totaly CLUELESS

Originally posted by factbeforefiction
That's pretty dense, that must be where the Obama supporters come from.

I LOL'd at this one

/win

Originally posted by guidanceofthe third kind
reply to post by AceWombat04

 

exactly, anything is possiblé but also more likely than not improbablé.

yeh and here you sit typing



I crack me up!!

Originally posted by badmedia

Originally posted by xalaran
if its orbit has been calculated to 4 days then its a pretty good guess its well on its way to having a close encounter with its star. earth is moving towards the sun although a very slow pace but we are getting closer even the moon is getting closer to us we may not notice it but it is.

Not sure where you get your information, because that is not right at all. The moon is moving away from the earth and has been for a long long time.

They even have shows on the science channel talking about how the earth would change if/when we lose the moon.

Correct the moon is slowly moving away from use because of the way it interacts with our ocean, the constant pushing and pulling of our ocean tides is pushing the moon away. In ancient times the moon was closer to us and looked bigger in the sky than it does now.

[edit on 5-12-2009 by Bachfin]

Originally posted by argentus

Originally posted by Brainiac

Originally posted by Bspiracy
Nothing can survive?
Don't you feel a TAD arrogant with that statement?

b

no he shouldn't. if you know anything about astrophysics, you'd make the conclusion that nothing could possibly exist on that planet... It's so dense that it's gravity probably wouldn't even allow air to float...

anything there would be liquified...

if you think in realistic scales and not magical fairytale realms of thought, you can understand just how rare life is, and how difficult a habitable planet is to find...

I think it would be accurate to say that "life as we know it" could not survive on such a planet. Life as we are unaware of? Perhaps. NO way of saying with any certainty.

It's where Goku and Vegetta come from

i have been to COROT-exo-3b & i can tell you it's lovely. i was pleased (not horrified) w/ my weight there, as i've always considered myself a bit too thin. my girth on the other hand was out of control. my waist poured out to a slovenly 676 meters. looked a mess in a speedo. but summer there was warm & gorgeous & so was my tan. the locals were friendly & i never found the language barrier to be a problem as long as i waved a black dead carcass & smiled a toothless grin. rampant, drunken sexuality will get you ANYWHERE in the universe, honey.

reply to post by ufo914

i have been to COROT-exo-3b & i can tell you it's lovely.

Yep

Always fun to read of new discoveries - thanks for posting.

I am a skeptic on the current planetary formation model - I think there is a lot of room for debate - and personally I think plenty of evidence to say that black holes are the basis for the formation of a planet and a star.

So, what its made of may be of far less consequence than what is inside it.

Anyway - new celestial objects with strange personalities are always fun

reply to post by Amagnon


you being here is TOTALY NORMAL.

then people say wow thats odd

lol??? are peolpe insane?

am i the only person on this planet who thinks BEING here is some what ODD in the first place? and then i read topics about planets? being more dense than LED

I mean HELLO? finding a planet made of marshmellows is NOT strange..

BEING here IS the strange part ever other shocker is NORMAL


Man: lar de dar , Oh my god a planet! more dense than led! holy crap nothing can live on that

Reality: funny.. i thought the same thing about YOU considering you live in a universe with NO end.