Posted on 09/14/2006 9:59:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Hmmm, sounds to me like it is in the process of boiling away, being both close and "fluffy." Because of its size, I'm tempted to call it "Puff Daddy," but then I'd have to change the name every few years.
I'm tempted to call it "Puff Daddy," but then I'd have to change the name every few years.:'D [rimshot!]
This new planet is even fluffier than Saturn. Three times fluffier. Doesn't seem possible.There are at least three possibilities; one is, that the planet is a recent arrival and in the process of spiralling down into the star; a second is, the density estimates are based on screwed up data or interpretation; a third is, the density estimates are wrong because the estimated distance to the system is wrong.
Hoagland cites hyperdimensional physics as the cause of the fluffiness--an input of energy to the interior of the planet causing heating and thermal expansion. This is not one of the commonly accepted explanations.
Great place to get a quick tan.
...and not have to worry about developing skin cancer afterward. ;')
Hoagland cites hyperdimensional physics as the cause of the fluffiness--an input of energy to the interior of the planet causing heating and thermal expansion. This is not one of the commonly accepted explanations.Heh, y'think? Damned narrow-minded Isis-worshipping jackbooted NASA lackeys! ;') Hyperdimensional physics are also responsible for ice cubes floating, water boiling at room temperature when the air is pumped out, and uh, and uh, socks disappearing out of the dryer...
Dunno about hyperdimensional but make sense that the planet is 'blowing up' from the energy it is receiving from the sun.
Hyperdimensional physics might be interesting from an archaeological standpoint. It is mainly what physics was before Michelson-Morley and the Theory of Relativity. There were many lines of theoretical development such as the vortex theory of gravity let go abruptly in 1895-1905 since the new approaches were much easier to work with mathematically. However, these lines of theoretical development are still available and a few scientists continue work on them and Hoagland is assembling some of the current results. While Hoagland is more impressed with some of the geometrical results than is warranted, still the ideas should not be completely dismissed just because the math is not as well developed as tensors and string theory has been more productive so far.
If it's all puffy, and really is 1/3 the density of water, it probably lacks a rocky core, or at least, very much of one.
Phase diagram of water revisedSupercomputer simulations by two Sandia researchers have significantly altered the theoretical diagram universally used by scientists to understand the characteristics of water at extreme temperatures and pressures. The new computational model also expands the known range of water's electrical conductivity. The Sandia theoretical work showed that phase boundaries for "metallic water" -- water with its electrons able to migrate like a metal's -- should be lowered from 7,000 to 4,000 kelvin and from 250 to 100 gigapascals. (A phase boundary describes conditions at which materials change state -- think water changing to steam or ice, or in the present instance, water -- in its pure state an electrical insulator -- becoming a conductor.) The lowered boundary is sure to revise astronomers' calculations of the strength of the magnetic cores of gas-giant planets like Neptune. Because the planet's temperatures and pressures lie partly in the revised sector, its electrically conducting water probably contributes to its magnetic field, formerly thought to be generated only by the planet's core. The calculations agree with experimental measurements in research led by Peter Celliers of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
PhysOrg
Thursday, October 5, 2006
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