back to article People say tabloid hacks are always looking for an angle. This time, they'd be right: Tilting disk of proto-planets spotted

Astronomers have found the first example of a protoplanetary disk forming at a right angle to its parent stars, according to a paper published in Nature Astronomy this week. The HD 98800 system, located about 150 light years away, has been known for while. For years, its most distinguishing feature to Earth-based boffins was …

  1. sodium-light

    That second picture is screaming for some paperback paradise treatment

  2. GreggS
    Happy

    So the photo makes it look like a flat solar system? They were right all along!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's flat, but it is not in the same plane as the orbit of two stars which it surrounds. Which is weird. The article botches the description by comparing it to our system, which is not a binary system (let alone a double binary).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Chicken and egg

    The shape of the disc causes the stars, the stars don't cause the shape of the disc. The chicken came first and laid the eggs. It happens to have laid two.

    If you have a resonant universe, then it has a center of resonance, and the oscillating field going outward from that center is usually a spiral.... which kinda suggests that the shape of a disc depends on its path out from the center of the universe relative to the axis of the resonant field. The net effect of all those little spirals will add up to from a big spiral.

    In simple terms: Our galaxy spirals the way it does because of the path its taking out from the center of resonance.

    Think of resonance in 2D, its ripples in a pond spreading out from the center, every point in the pond is oscillating at a frequency F, but the phase varies across the pond. If you take a path out from the center of the pond to the outside, you will experience a consistent wave. Take a path across the ripples and its turbulent.

    Likewise in 3D, these oscillations spiral outwards, if you followed the path out from the center of the universe in a resonant universe, it (usually) spirals outwards, except for a few places at the axes.

    It would seem likely that shape of that disc is determined by its angles out from the center of the universe, just as our galaxy's shape and twist is determined by the direction out from the resonant center we are travelling.

    Which direction is the center of the universe?

    Just as if you crossed the ripples in the pond it would be turbulent, so if we crossed the spirals in the resonance, it would be turbulent. So the direction to the center of the universe should be the calmest.... If you look in the Cosmic Microwave Background, you'll notice the dipole axis, the quadrupole axis, and the octupole axis, IMHO the dipole axis is the direction to the center from the universe, through us and outwards to the outer event horizon. This is the line along which we are moving out from the center of the universe.

    What is our universe?

    Our universe is a black hole, we have a resonance frequency F, the outer universe has a resonance F/2. The event horizon we see as the edge of our observable universe. Time for us moves twice as fast as the outer black hole, (see my previous comments about F being the source of the speed of light and time). The event horizon occurs when light/matter switches from oscillating at F/2 in the outer universe to F in our inner universe. The outside universe sees a black hole, we see an outer observable edge to our universe.

    Stars should be disappearing across the event horizon until we are not dense enough to sustain F resonance relative to the outer black hole, then pop, the black hole will end and our resonance will switch to F/2. If the expansion is accelerating then the black hole spin outside is also accelerating.

    Why does the universe have an axis?

    So what determines the axis of resonance of our universe? Well, if we're in a black hole, and its spinning, then it would make sense if the resonant oscillation is along the spin axis at the center. i.e. the axis of our resonance is determined by the axis of spin of the outside black hole.

    If anyone wants a thought experiment to understand resonant universe, then I'll add one involving atomic clocks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Resonant universe

      A simple thought experiment to understand why matter is resonant.

      Atomic Clocks

      If you have matter oscillating (as observed), and that matter is connected by electric force (as well understood), then it must be equalling out to a resonant frequency. You cannot deny resonance, because you use it in an atomic clock to amplify the oscillation enough for it to be measured. If you use it, you accept the concept of resonance. The oscillation is observed, the force is known, so resonance is undeniable.

      So given infinite time, you MUST have resonance. The universe must have settled to some semblance of order. Some frequency F.

      So the oscillations of an atomic clock must form part of the resonant field, and those oscillations must derive from that universal resonant F frequency.

      Lets call the wavelength of F, W.

      If I move your atomic clock with velocity W/4 over that oscillatong field, then it's only needs to oscillate over 3F/4 to stay in resonance.

      It's like I put W/4 of the resonance into velocity and (3/4)W into the resonance. W is shorter, F is higher, 'time' as measured in oscillations of the atomic clock runs faster, just because the oscillation is faster.

      So of course your atomic clock runs faster when it has velocity. That is a consequence of its motion over the resonant field.

      Even if I put the full oscillation into velocity, that would only be W per oscillation. i.e. the maximum velocity is W per oscillation, the 'max speed of light' is W per oscillation. Things like the effects of forces propagating across matter, they cannot happen faster than W per oscillation because that is the maximum velocity at 1F resonance. To cause the field to change, requires movement and movement is limited to 1W per oscillation.

      Likewise the more of the electric oscillation is put into velocity the less is left in the axis of oscillation. I can push it, but the faster it goes the harder I need to push. Because I'm pushing against a smaller component.

      There is no magic mass, and no bendy space/time, accelerating does not create mass.

      I can dice this fifty different way, they all arrive at the "NO MASS" conclusion.

      These magic effects of physics are just resonance, including this behavior of an atomic clock.

      The same mechanics works at all levels. Its the field light travels over, its the field matter travels over.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Resonant universe

        Consider the formation of a black hole

        Matter in this universe oscillates at resonant frequency 1F, corresponding to a wavelength of 1W.

        As the star gets more energy dense, it tries to oscillate faster, a shorter wavelength to account for the higher energy density.

        As it gets denser, it spins faster and faster while holding 1F resonance, 1.2F, 1.3F, 1.4F.... faster and faster spin needed.

        Until it's dense enough to break resonance, and it flips to 2F resonance, now the spin slows down, 1.7F, 1.8F, 1.9F...when it reaches 2F, its decoupled from the outer 1F universe, it needs zero spin to compensate. Every 1F oscillation in the outer-universe resonant field, sees both +ve and -ve oscillations in the inner 2F universe. No outer spin needed.

        Inside the black hole.

        Inside the black hole, is another universe, this one oscillating at 2F. Since the speed of light, propagation of forces, and every chemical and physics process operate twice as fast, everything looks like a regular universe to the people inside.

        Matter is appearing at the outer event horizon, and moving towards the center of that universe. Slowing down as it goes. When all matter if at the center it has reached perfect 2F resonance with respect to the outer black hole. The outer black hole has stopped spinning at this point.

        The center inside our inner universe at this point is another black hole, inside that one is another black hole, and another.....

        a 2F containing a 4F, 8F 16F.... each half the wavelength, time running twice as fast. W/2+W/4+W/8.... limit sum =1W.

        Now the outer spin has stopped, this black hole is now at 2F resonance relative to the outer universe.

        Back outside the black hole

        So the outer universe drives the creation of black holes, and the spin, and it *continues* to drive the spin past the zero point. The black hole starts to spin up again.

        Inside the black hole matter starts to move outward from the center of the universe, black holes in the center collapse, the nested dolls of black holes collapse one by one. We accelerate out to the outer event horizon.

        Stars at the edge of our universe disappear over the event horizon.

        No big bang, just an accelerating spin from the outer black hole, which appears as velocity in the inner universe.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

          And matter is just an oscillation of +ve, -ve massless, sizeless, particles, and the corresponding electric field between them.

          1. Light has an oscillating electric field (by observation)

          2. So light must have charges oscillating (because other electric fields derive from charged particles)

          3. Light comes from matter (e.g. turn on a torch)

          4. So matter contains the charges that form light's oscillating charges

          5. Matter can COMPLETELY be converted to light (e.g. particle+anti-particle to photon)

          6. So matter must be ONLY made of these two particles with no residue.

          7. And the only forces derive from electric if we only have charged particles.

          8. Light's has no mass

          9. If matter is completely made of the same stuff light is made of, it has no mass either.

          You don't need anything more.

          1. Rich 11

            Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

            *rubs eyes*

            Well, that's five minutes of my life I won't get back.

            1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              My BSometer started going of VERY quickly, with the talk of the Universe having a resonant centre. A quick skim of the rest of it did not change that.

              I went back to the top fully expecting to see that the whole thread was written by our favourite 'Martian', and was slightly surprised that it was written by an AC.

              For a much better read about how the Universe really is please check out SWAB.

              https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang

              1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

                Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

                My BSometer started going of VERY quickly, with the talk of the Universe having a resonant centre

                Quite.

                The universe has no centre, just like there is no concept of the surface of a bubble having a centre, or a circle having a 'start'. If you start talking about brane theory, then there may be a higher-dimensional 'centre' of our universe, in the same way that a bubble has a centre, or a circle has a focus. However, it's still up for debate whether the curvature of our space-time is open (like a hyperbola, which doesn't have a cental focus), closed (like a n-dimensional sphere), flat, or some combination of open/closed in diffent dimensions (e.g. toroidal, tubular, etc.). Not to mention the debate about how many dimesions there really are. Is it 3, 4, 11, 23, etc? - Let alone whether 'our' universe is just one 'brane' of many in a higher-dimensional space.

                Brane theory (like string theory) is, of course, not even a proper theory, as it hasn't yet made any observable predictions (i.e. have anything you can measure and attribute to it). In other words, just like the surface of a bubble, the fact that the bubble itself has a centre has no effect in making any point on the surface any different from any other.

              2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

                Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

                "My BSometer started going of VERY quickly, with the talk of the Universe having a resonant centre."

                Because, as we all know, the centre of the universe is soft, gooey caramel. With a crunchy chocolate event horizon.

            2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              I think someone needs to cut down on the ayahuasca.

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              "Well, that's five minutes of my life I won't get back."

              While I do find some of these thoughts entertaining, he lost me at "So of course your atomic clock runs faster when it has velocity". Isn't the problem rather that clocks run slower the faster they move (insert "relative" and "reference" as needed)?

              Reminds me of The Forever War

            4. Simon Harris

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              I faded out faster than the 'Expand comment' fade-out.

          2. deadlockvictim

            Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

            AC3: 9. If matter is completely made of the same stuff light is made of, it has no mass either.

            I'm sure that e=mc² fits in here somewhere, but where?

            1. 1752

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

              ― Bill Hicks

          3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

            Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

            Just for fun:

            1) Light actually has perpendicular oscillating electrical and magnetic fields.

            2) My sandwich must be a chicken sandwich because other sandwiches contain chicken. (Hasty generalisation logical fallacy)

            3) Light (photons) can also come from synchrotron radiation, where a charged particle loses energy in a magnetic field and emits it as a photon. The energy for the photon comes from the charged particle's energetic state relative to the field it sits within. I'm sure there are other sources from which photons can come.

            4) You previous three logical steps are false, so no. You can't conclude this.

            5) Particle + anti-particle -> any combination of particles that conserves the charge/spin total. This may be a photon, but in many cases neutrinos are also produced to conserve quantum parity.

            6) Nope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle

            7) Well, I guess we'd better tell the strong and weak forces, and gravity to fuck off then.

            8) I bought some lights from Ikea. they definitely had mass.

            9) Joking aside, it's worth noting that although photons are massless, the have momentum. Because they have no mass, they cannot travel slower than c. Conversely, particles with mass cannot travel at c, because relativity indicates that their mass would approach infinity as they approach c. I can assure you that relativity has been tested a lot more thoroughly than your ramblings, including experiments with atomic clocks to show time dilation in space, gravitational lensing, and all sorts of other craziness.

            1. Rich 11

              Re: And matter is just +ve -ve and electric force

              I have to congratulate you on having a fuckload more patience than I have. The problem is that anyone so far down the rabbit hole as to think up and write down that shit in so much detail just isn't going to be reachable. Sometimes its so bad that it's not even worth debunking point by point in the hope of reaching the fence-sitters. This sort of drivel is so far out that it makes anti-vaxxers look rational*.

              *But not homeopaths. Homeopathy is just too fucking stupid for words.

    2. Paul Smith

      Re: Chicken and egg

      I am sure you mean well and that you think you are on to something important, but your grasp of basic physics is incomplete and that is leading you to make some quite silly assertions.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Chicken and egg

      "If you have a resonant universe....."

      Ok, which one of you untied the sleeves of his straitjacket and gave him a keyboard?

  4. Crisp

    Venus has a weird spin.

    I would be surprised if there weren't planets with really weird orbits too.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Venus has a weird spin.

      Yeah, but it's the ones which are weird and stable which are really interesting.

      1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

        Re: Venus has a weird spin.

        And Pluto has a weird plane.

  5. knarf

    Sounds like a 3 Body Problem

    Its a dark forest out there in the black

    1. sodium-light

      Re: Sounds like a 3 Body Problem

      Yes someone's going to send a massive signal to these guys cuz brexit n stuff.

      Bagsy wallfacer I think I'd be good at that.

  6. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    The amount of sunlight would also vary across different latitudes.

    It does with just a single sun as well.

  7. Martin Gregorie

    That second artists impression

    That second artists impression looks irresistably like a sketch of Ringworld, as described on one of Larry Niven's Known Space novels with the same name.

    Here's a similar Ringworrld visualisation:

    http://www.squareshadow.com/graphics/ringworld/rw5.html

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That second artists impression

      The effect decreases as you get closer to the Ringworld surface though: here's a visualisation I did (Real3D V3 on Amiga) looking towards Fist Of God from 100km (iirc) above the surface.

      I had tweaked the refractive index of the atmosphere material to ensure that some refraction artifacts were visible but didn't expect the 'streaky' effect. I think it was due to the 'shape' of the atmosphere i.e. a hollowed cylinder and thus flat in one direction but curved in the other.

      http://www.spatial.plus.com/Real3D/im_Ringworld00m02.jpg

  8. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Unsurprising situation really, but excellent that it has now been observed.

    If planets can be knocked off-plane by something hitting them, it follows that the same can happen in a binary star system.

    Of course I'm assuming a lot of things, particularly that the whole system started off in-plane, and that it's the suns which have changed. But it's plausible that something has impacted one of the suns and therefore tilted the axis of the binary pair.

    Presumably that happened when both were much smaller (as to achieve the same effect on a large sun would require too much force)

    Interesting stuff though.

  9. DubyaG

    Reminds me of a story

    "Any inhabitants of the planets in the HD 98800 system would see four stars in the sky and the shadows of the stars would appear at different times. The amount of sunlight would also vary across different latitudes."

    "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel)

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