Mr Worf, reading this reminded me that we may not have that long... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-milky-way-and-andromeda-collide-earth-could-find-itself-far-from-home
"If all the world's a stage and all the people merely players, who in bloody hell hired the director?" -- Charles L Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com From: hellomahog...@gmail.com Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:41:37 -0700 Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star About 4.5 Billion years give or take. On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 4:18 PM, <wlro...@aol.com> wrote: This is interesting, I think I heard somewhere that our sun only has so many years left before it goes nova as well. But that so many years are a very long way off. --Lavender -------------------------------------------------- From: "ravenadal" <ravena...@yahoo.com> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:29 PM To: <scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [scifinoir2] Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star > http://shuudu.notlong.com > > Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star > > By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP) - 1 day ago > > WASHINGTON - Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal > planet. > > The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is > triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are > in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star. > > The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually > spiraling into the star. > > It's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, > said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the > Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in > Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. > > "It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said. > > The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide > Angle Search for Planets team that found them. > > The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is > about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic > neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles. > > The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance > between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature > is about 3,800 degrees. > > Its size - 10 times bigger than Jupiter - and its proximity to its star > make it likely to die, Hellier said. > > Think of how the distant moon pulls Earth's oceans to form twice-daily > tides. The effect the odd planet has on its star is thousands of times > stronger, Hellier said. The star's tidal bulge of plasma may extend > hundreds of miles, he said. > > Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen > directly by a telescope. Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from > the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth. > > So far astronomers have found more than 370 planets outside the solar > system. This one is "yet another weird one in the exoplanet menagerie," > said planet specialist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of > Washington. > > It's so unusual to find a suicidal planet that University of Maryland > astronomer Douglas Hamilton questioned whether there was another > explanation. While it is likely that this is a suicidal planet, Hamilton > said it is also possible that some basic physics calculations that all > astronomers rely on could be dead wrong. > > The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems > to be further in a death spiral, he said. > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Post your SciFiNoir Profile at > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/app/peoplemap2/entry/add?fmvn=mapYahoo! > Groups Links > > > ------------------------------------ Post your SciFiNoir Profile at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/app/peoplemap2/entry/add?fmvn=mapYahoo! Groups Links http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ Individual Email | Traditional http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/join (Yahoo! ID required) mailto:scifinoir2-dig...@yahoogroups.com mailto:scifinoir2-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- Bringing diversity to perversity for 9 years! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009
