Hubble Reinforces Planet Formation Theory 79
eldavojohn writes "Physorg is running an interesting article on the most recent of Hubble's accomplishments. It has provided us evidence supporting that which Emmanuel Kant proposed over 200 years ago — that planets do indeed form from disks of gas and dust that surround stars. The trick, apparently, was observing many cases where a star's planet forms on the exact same circumstellar disk as the dust and gas. Hubble also aided the researchers in determining the weight of many extrasolar planets. Some had contended that these were not planets but rather brown dwarf stars — which is determined by measuring their weight." Update: 10/12 23:08 GMT by T : That's not the only theory Hubble's recent observation's have supported: read on below for a bit more.
somegeekynick writes "Hubble has spotted a bunch of little galaxies, nicknamed Spiderweb, over 10 billion light-years away in the process of merging. This observation supports the so-called 'bottom-up' theory of galaxy formation, according to which smaller clumps of matter collided and merged with each other to form larger galaxies during early stages of the universe's evolution."
Mass != Weight (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, just needed to be pendantic for a moment.
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Anyway, thanks for the correction.
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I was about to comment on how the advertising-is-teh-devil crowd would bitch about the number of pages the regular version spanned, but the regular version [physorg.com] is only one page, too.
Re:Mass != Weight (Score:4, Informative)
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<PEDANTIC>"Tons" is a measure of weight. "Tonnes", is what I believe you were looking for.</PEDANTIC>
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On the other hand, weight is a measure of one object's gravitational attraction to another. The measured wobble of these stars is induced by said gravitational attraction. Therefore, HST is helping to determine the weight of suspected planets.
juxtaposition != causation (Score:2, Insightful)
has at last confirmed what Kant and scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars.
Again, "modern" scientists jumping to unsupported conclusions. Simply observing a dust cloud and a planet in the same orbital plain around the same star doesn't prove the planet formation theory. Until they find a dust cloud containing a proto-planet in the process of condensing, the theory is still unproven.
Re:juxtaposition != causation (Score:5, Insightful)
The onyl way to be certian is to go visit the planet.
Now where's my hyperspace drive.
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There's possibly a Nobel prize waiting for the person who can produce the formula for planet creation that accounts for the mass and rotation speed of the star; the mass, area, composition, rotation speed, and over-all gravimetric effect of the dust cloud; and th
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Where? Can you quote it? I would be intersted to see, where they ascribe an orbit to a disk.
This is pretty silly (Score:2)
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Nobody did that, you just have no idea what you're talking about.
The theory had a major loophole in it because nobody had ever before been able to observe a planet formation on the same plane as it's sun's disk of dust and gas. This find goes a long way toward closing that loophole and, when combined with all prior evidence for the theory, also goes a long way to validating it's accuracy to the point of virtual certainty.
I have no idea why you fe
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As for the "glib stab", presenting conclusions in the face of non-conclusive evidence calls for questioning, and any ethical scientis
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Due to the time scales on which this happens, this is just impossible. How do you want to oberserve a process, which takes longer as our civilization exists? (And btw: how would you tell a proto-planet from a planet?) Similar to the way astrophysicists have confirmed the theory of stellar evolution, you have to find examples of systems in different stages. They have planet systems without de
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Obviously we cannot observe the entire process, but an agreed-upon mid-point would certainly do.
And btw: how would you tell a proto-planet from a planet?
I hope there's already a general description for when a group of matter within a dust-cloud would be considered a planet, or planet-like, or at least planet forming. That would be a conclusive smoking gun to justify the theory as now being an observed working meth
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Ahem, yes something like - a planet inside a disk of dust for instance...
Your notion of a "smoking gun" is a bit too simple. Scientific the
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You have a competing theory? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought not.
Not all scientists accept Kant's theories regarding planetary evolution as correct. Even the scientists who do accepts Kant's theories as correct (and they are the overwhelming majority) will be the first to admit that they are theories. That's the nature of science.
Yes, the theory is still unproven - but it is well
Question for the science folks out there (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Question for the science folks out there (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to agree that it's most likely that Pluto is a captured object, but another theory out there is that Pluto formed the same as the first eight planets, but then was knocked out of a normal planetary orbit by collision with another object (like its moon).
In science, the term entirely obvious is a very bad one -- it limits the drive to seek alternate explanations, which may end up being the correct ones.
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The reason the planets are all in roughly the same plane and have nearly circular orbits is conservation of angular momentum of the protoplanetary disk. All planets, because of collions occuring roughly equally from all sides.
Pluto, being further out in less dense space, probably experienced fewer collisions, so it could not achieve the same equalibrium as the rest of the planets. Hense whey it's orbit is the most oblong and not on the same plane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk [wikipedia.org]
I'm
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-matthew
Replacement? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose worldly wastes just get a higher priority than figuring out how the Universe is put together, and thus learning to better manage and predict it...
**sigh** (Score:2)
the James Webb Space Telescope [nasa.gov] is slated to enter operations in 2013. Some parts are under construction already.
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It is true that the particular wavelengths it images are largely unique among current and proposed space observatories, but those are certainly not the only wavelengths of interest. The justification of the high cost of the James Webb Space Telescope comes from the fact that no other observatory has the deep infrared capability or sensitivity to examine early galaxies in the detail that JWST will. In fact, JWST wi
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Ah, but an aspect of it does for potentially a measure of years. It's not in effect anyway. No space bourne telescope. Ooops.
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Hubble Space Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Chandra X-ray Observatory [wikipedia.org]
Infrared Space Observatory [wikipedia.org]
Corot Space Telescope [wikipedia.org]
MOST Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Astro-F Space Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Swift Gamma Ray Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Kepler Space Telescope [wikipedia.org]
SOHO [wikipedia.org]
These are some of the more interesting ones currently operating or scheduled to come online before 2010. As you see, the different space agencies actually operate quite a few space-based observatories, each with differe
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Hear Here (Score:2)
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Re:Hear Here (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually, this has been done in a number of ways. Nose is just an instrument to analyze chemical composition of substances. An incomplete list of existing techniques:
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Original text (Score:1)
wtf (Score:1)
like saying "planet blahblah wieghs 700billion ton" NO IT DOESN'T it weighs nothing! there's no gravitational force acting upon it. If it was heavy it'd fall somewhere LMAO
really.. come on.. and how do they weigh something by looking at it anyway? they don't KNOW what the de
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Yes. They are calculating mass, not weight.
If the planet was dead in space (not moving) we would not be able to estimate its mass very well: it might be made of lead or marshmellows and we would not be able to tell very well one way or the other from this far away without having more, um, powerful instruments [wikipedia.org]. However, when a planet is moving around a star, we can make a fairly g
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Proposterous (Score:2, Funny)
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Later he changed it to Immanuel.
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So difficult (Score:2, Funny)
Must-resist-urge-to-make-lame-"Brown Dwarf"-comment.
[/insert William Shatner voice]