Hypergiant stars found to have dusty disks in orbit

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The discovery of dusty disks--the building blocks of planets--around two of the most massive stars known suggests that planets might form and survive in surprisingly hostile environments.

The discovery was made through NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope observations of two hypergiant stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud--the Milky Way's nearest neighboring galaxy--by a team led by Joel Kastner, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. His team's findings will appear in the Feb. 10 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

So far, searches for planets outside the solar system have been restricted to sun-like stars. All of these stars are older, dimmer and cooler objects than hypergiants, which are extraordinarily large and luminous but shorter-lived by billions of years.

Looks like the candidate stars for planet hunters to scour has increased yet again. I am rather excited about this discovery as the standard model of planet formation will have to be updated.

[edit on 9-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 9/2/06 by JAK]

This is one more increase in the value on N in The Drake Equation. if the value of Fp has increased, so do the chances of life existing elsewhere in the galaxy. Soon we won't be able to deny the probability of life in other solar systems.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
This is one more increase in the value on N in The Drake Equation. if the value of Fp has increased, so do the chances of life existing elsewhere in the galaxy. Soon we won't be able to deny the probability of life in other solar systems.

Unfortunately the Drake Equation is fairly subjective... If you want you can have there be life in every solar system, or you can make there be only one. It just depends on how you plug in the numbers.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
This is one more increase in the value on N in The Drake Equation. if the value of Fp has increased, so do the chances of life existing elsewhere in the galaxy. Soon we won't be able to deny the probability of life in other solar systems.

Unfortunately the Drake Equation is fairly subjective... If you want you can have there be life in every solar system, or you can make there be only one. It just depends on how you plug in the numbers.

Real numbers are better then made up ones correct?(Discoveries like this directly impacts the variables of this equasion) Drake plugged in his own numbers and those are completly guesswork, future generation will definetly have more accurate numbers for R*,fp,ne,fl. fi & fc can only be determined if SETI is a success(or we detect the glow of alien cities via telescopes on Earth Like planets) and L will always be a "best guess" which we will only learn about by going into the cosmos ourselves.

We can set an upper limit and a lower limit with time just by using the rules of probablity.

[edit on 9-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 9-2-2006 by sardion2000]

quote: Originally posted by Rasobasi420
This is one more increase in the value on N in The Drake Equation. if the value of Fp has increased, so do the chances of life existing elsewhere in the galaxy. Soon we won't be able to deny the probability of life in other solar systems.


Unfortunately the Drake Equation is fairly subjective... If you want you can have there be life in every solar system, or you can make there be only one. It just depends on how you plug in the numbers.

Okay, I'll give you that. But we can at least agree that this discovery does increase the Fp variable, even if all of the other variables are unknowable. If nothing else, we have discovered at least a little more potential from our perspective of discovering life.

Although planets might survive around hyper-giant stars, life on them likely wouldn't. Radiation would be massively instense - and the hapitable zone very thin. Add to this that hyper-giant stars live only in the range of millions of years before undergoing supernova. Remember, bigger stars mean shorter lives.

After even a billion years, earth still did not have much in the way of life, or perhaps not even any life any life at all!

So the chances of life forming, and being anything significant, on these planets around hyper-giants is very small. The life-span of habitability on these planets would be more than miniscule... only the most basic of life might form. Beyond that, no, intelligent life will not arise around these stars. The star simply won't live long enough for it to happen.