Mega-star HD 10180 could have more planets than the Sun Headline-hogging HD10180, the Sun-like star that fired the imaginations of alien-lovers everywhere back in 2010, may be the biggest planetary system ever detected. Artist's impression of the planetary system around HD10180 Artist's impression of the planetary system around HD10180. Credit: ESO/L Calçada A new study is …
Bode's law was quite mysterious, until people realised that the curious sequence of orbital radii of planets meant an equally curious sequence of orbital periods (see Kepler's second law). Effectively, a sequence of orbits obeying Bode's law have simple resonances between the orbits. This increases stability. Over time, we would expect planetary systems to stabilize into orbits which obey this law.
Way back in the mists of time <cue strange swirly effect> I used Bode's Law for the coursework in a maths GCSE I took (for fun - already had an o level). I aimed to prove it by applying it to Jupiter's moons. There were a few anomalies (just as in the solar system itself), but it broadly fit.
(I think I then took the coursework in the direction of using Bode's Law to fill in some of the numbers in the Drake equation...)
I ought to try searching for the original document. I must have it still, somewhere.
Kinda makes massive assumptions regarding the ability of life to exist in what would be outwardly hostile environments to us. Even on earth places like hydrothermal vents would be a bitch for us, but many species thrive there.
It does bother me that humanity can be so unimaginative when it comes to thinking outside of the box with our definitions of 'life', pretty lame really. That close to the sun you could come up with a solar powered life form that could generate enough energy to ambulate, think 'Little Shop of Horrors' ;)
"It does bother me that humanity can be so unimaginative when it comes to thinking outside of the box with our definitions of 'life', pretty lame really"
Except he said "... for humanity or similar-bodied aliens" rather than "... for life"
'similar-bodied' referring to our constitution, rather than simply our having legs.
So 'similar bodied' means what then? I took it to mean has a body, stands up. Nothing about either of those criteria that would by definition make things flammable...
To imply that in addition to having a similar outward appearance, they also have the same 'running gear' as life from earth is kinda daft, and was the point I was making.
Oh well...
"Can nothing be done about the sudden influx of trolls like Big Dumb Guy 555?"
It depends. In one of the user forums, there was talk of HTML5 standard browsers possibly having a feature where we can give electric shocks to posters of stupid comments (Thankfully for me, I don't have HTML5 compatible browsers :)
By the way, strange posts are nothing new. AManFromMars has been entertaining us since 2007 (although it's been quiet since he went back to Mars)
Though the hopes of successfully finding anything that can hold an intelligent conversation are fading fast...
After the finding that the North American Continent is infested with the Republican Dung Flinging Beetle, which is on the verge of invading the Erasion and African Continents with the expectant annihilation of the less aggressive indigenousness sand and mud kicking beetles.
Seem to recall the discussions about silicon based life with a DNA analog based on a double helix with heavy metals such as thallium, cadmium, lead and mercury acting as the "bases" and complex cuprates as the "sugars".
Just because cadmium is highly toxic to Earthly life forms doesen't mean that something with completely different biochemistry with a lower survivability limit of +240 Celsius might not derive energy from converting copper into its oxides or carbides with ambient solar energy.
That said, my back of the extremely black & charred envelope calculations suggest that about the most complex life form would be something like a fungus i.e. multicellular but living in a colony.
AC/DC 6EQUJ5
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