Astroboffins spot HOT, YOUNG GIANT where she doesn't belong An international team of astroboffins has spotted an enormous exoplanet with such an improbably large orbit around its host star that it could turn cosmological theory on its head. Artist's conception of exoplanet HD 106906 b No this isn't a Hubble snap with lens flare, it's an artist's conception of the newly discovered …
The Earth to Sun distance is commonly called 1 Astronomical Unit.
Mars is 1.52AU (roughly)., Neptune (last giant outer planet) 30.1AU. Pluto (OK no longer officially a planet) 39.3AU. And the transit time to Pluto is measured in decades.. And so far no human has traveled more than 1/372 of an AU.
So 650AU is big
Voyager 1 has traveled approximately 127 AU, and it's outside the solar system. Provided Voyager continues at its current pace, it will take another 146 years to reach 650AU.
This planet is over 4 times farther from its sun than the farthest any man-made vessel has traveled. You could fit two of our solar systems between this planet and its sun, and still have lots of space.
Big is an understatement.
That supergiant - assuming it's a gas giant, which seems reasonable - is about a seventh of the mass necessary to collapse and undergo stellar ignition, according to a recent research paper, which puts the tipping point at about 75 Jovian masses.
I look forward to this technology discovering some very large warm object much closer to our Sun than Proxima Centuari, something large enough to have satellites around it.
It would be nicer still if we could have another situation similar to what happened with the Voyager probes, where planets were well aligned for a tour, where we could have spacecraft passing not just our outer planets, and Kuiper Belt objects, but passing by an object of this magnitude within our lifetimes.
You see, space is big. Really big.
If something large and warm was within a few light-days, we'd have seen it by now, because it'd be extremely bright compared to the other stuff we've been looking at.
And we're not going to be able to send something further than a few light days within our lifetimes, (unless we find a shortcut.)
Voyager 1 has gone the furthest, currently sat at roughly 0.7 light days away, after ~36 years.
"(unless we find a shortcut.)".
Yep, we need to do an "Event Horizon" (minus the going to hell bit) if we're going to get anywhere apart from 2 feet from out door step.
I wish I could be around to see it when we get out and about in the galaxy (if we ever do). Time to invent the Holly-Hop drive methinks!
We don't have a clue what is in the Oort Cloud. But I am sure that the Oort cloud contains more then just icy comets and minor planets (Pluto sized). While I don't think there are any gas giants in the Oort cloud there might be ice giants and earth sized planet there. The problem is finding them, since out there it is pretty darn cold (around 3 Kelvin).
NASA information.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs&Display=OverviewLong
At that distance from the star the gravitational pull must be very small indeed, could this be a wandering planet that has ventured too close to the star and been captured? If there was a way to measure it's orbital plane compared to the other planets in the system that would answer the question...
(If something is wrong with this, please correct me)
---
Given:
127.03 AU approximate distance traveled so far by Voyager 1
4.2421 ly is the approximate distance to nearest star from Earth
Find:
How long would it take at Voyager 1's average speed so far, to go the distance of Earth to Earth's nearest star?
--- ---
My Answer:
Approximately 76568 years. Last digits maybe off due to rounding, etc...?
Although, I got 76576 years from Qalculate with units, and 76566 years from Ti Voyage 200 with units.
--- ---
// Research:
127.03 AU is approximately 0.7336640935983627 light days
127.03 AU is approximately 0.002008662816152567 light years
From September 5, 1977 to December 7, 2013 is 13,242 days
---
// Using Qalculate without units:
(4.2421ly)*(13242d)/(.73366ld*(ly/(365.25ld)))=___
(4.2421 ⋅ 13242) ∕ (0.73366 ∕ 365.25)
≈ 27965968.79351470709
days
((4.2421 ⋅ 13242) ∕ (0.73366 ∕ 365.25)) ∕ 365.2425
≈ 76568.22191698586
years
---
// Using Qalculate with units:
4.2421⋅ly⋅13242⋅day/(127.03⋅AU) = (4.2421 ⋅ lightyear ⋅ 13242 ⋅ day) ∕ (127.03 ⋅ astronomical_unit)
≈ 2.4165557924 Ts
≈ 76.57603215692 kiloyears
// Qalculate Uses
ly = lightyear ≈ 9.46073047258 Pm
day = day = 86.4 ks
AU = astronomical_unit = 149.5787066 Gm
year = year = 31.5576 Ms
---
// Using Ti Voyage 200 with units:
4.2421*_ltyr*13242*_day/(127.03*_au)
≈ 2.41619E12*_s
≈ 2416194140896.8*_s
≈ 76566.207457403*_yr
// Ti Voyage 200 uses
1*_ltyr = 9.4605284048794E15*_m
1*_day = 86400.*_s
1*_au = 149597900000.*_m
1*_yr = 365.24219878125*_day
--
// Web Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_year_%28astronomy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year
http://www.convertunits.com/from/AU/to/light+day
http://www.convertunits.com/from/AU/to/light+year
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=9&d1=5&y1=1977&m2=12&d2=7&y2=2013
---
// Calculator Sources:
Voyage 200, Qalculate
---
p.s. for those who want more digits in light days for my calculation...
((4.2421 ⋅ 13242) ∕ (0.7336640935983627 ∕ 365.25)) ∕ 365.2425
≈ 76567.79469211468
> 4.2421 ly is the approximate distance to nearest star from Earth
Wrong. Earth's nearest star is approximately 8 light minutes away. :-)
But top marks for getting a TI advert into your post. Personally, I think a four-banger would have done just as well since you didn't use any more advanced operators. ;-)
I suppose that could count as a star too... I should have said excluding the Earth's sun, or something like that...
The Earth's sun is ≈ 1/278896.8645 = 1/((4.2421 ⋅ lightyear) ∕ (8 ⋅ lightday ⋅ (lightyear ∕ (365.25 ⋅ 24 ⋅ 60 ⋅ lightday)))) times as far as the next closest star from Earth.
---
Counting this sun as a star, and 1 AU as the distance between the Earth and it's star, the sun.
"Astronomical unit, an approximation for the average distance between the Earth and the Sun"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AU
---
// Qalculate
AU⋅13242⋅day/(127.03⋅AU) = (astronomical_unit ⋅ 13242 ⋅ day) ∕ (127.03 ⋅ astronomical_unit)
≈ 9.00660316460679 Ms
≈ 9006603.16460678579863 s
≈ 0.285402031986171 year
---
// TI Voyage 200
_au*13242*_day/(127.03*au)
≈ 9006603.1646068*_s
≈ .28540812789648*_yr
---
Qalculate, TI Voyage 200, and Wikipedia, use different values for AU
149,578,706,600 m, Qalculate v.0.9.7
149,597,900,000 m, TI Voyage 200 OS Version 3.10, 07/18/2005
149,597,870,700 m, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit (the same day as this post)
(looks like the TI Voyage 200's AU is a rounded version of Wikipedia's AU, and Qalculate's AU uses a different measurement)
This post has been deleted by its author
...but given the system is 'only' @18 million years old, is it not possible that it is a binary system that is still in the process of forming? The exo-plant could be a proto brown dwarf that is still accreting material and coud light up once it gains sifficient mass?
- assuming there is any quantity of gas still available in the vacinity for it to hoover up of course...
They haven't seen the planet complete one orbit yet, they have just detected the planet's heat signature. So maybe the star and planet are not associated/orbiting at all, and the planet is a rogue which just happens to be kind of in the vicinity of the star at the moment as it drifts along.
Good point, it could be an "orphan planet"
I can imagine they may have some indication of the planet's radial velocity, but I doubt the data are sufficient for full orbit calculation. There is of course also the possibility of capture, as in the case of the moons of Mars
Earth is not still releasing energy from origin, it is releasing heat from the variable rate fission from 2 million cubic miles of Uranium and Thorium. By products include heat and 'elemental' atoms, including Helium (SG 0.16) and Radon (HL 3.8 days). Under high heat and pressure elemental atoms form 'elemental' molecules and compounds, including CO2, H2O and Methane. Fission rates vary on solar and cosmic particle bombardments and protection level from a varying magnetosphere. Current Earth science models are flawed.
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