NASA: Planet Formed 13 Billion Years Ago

Yahoo! News ^ | 7/10/03 | Deborah Zabarenko - Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The oldest planet ever detected is nearly 13 billion years old and more than twice the size of Jupiter, locked in orbit around a whirling pulsar and a white dwarf, astronomers said on Thursday.

Compared with the relative youth and stability of our own celestial neighborhood, where Earth and the other planets orbit a single 5-billion-year-old star in a quiet neighborhood of the Milky Way, the ancient group that holds the oldest planet has had a boisterous past, scientists said at a NASA (news - web sites) briefing.

The old planet is located near the heart of a globular star cluster some 5,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, about the distance light travels in a year.

Globular clusters were generally thought to be lousy environments for forming planets, because the clusters coalesced so early in the universe's development that the heavier elements needed to make planets were not yet present in abundance.

This finding, made with data from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites), indicates that even globular clusters can produce planets despite the small amount of heavy elements, said Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University.

FIRST GENERATION PLANET

"What we think we've found is an example of the first generation of planets formed in the universe," Sigurdsson said. "We think this planet formed with its star, 12.713 billion years ago when the (Milky Way) galaxy was very young, just in the process of forming."

By comparison, Earth and the rest of our solar system is a third-generation affair, made from gas that was polluted by the ashes of earlier generations of stars. And the sun is off by itself, not interacting directly with any other stars.

But globular clusters are like crowded marketplaces, with stars so close together they are forced to interact. That meant that the old planet went along for the ride, Sigurdsson said.

After forming around a sun-like star, the old planet was dragged with the star toward the core of the globular cluster. Then the planet was pulled toward a neutron star and its companion, enmeshing all four bodies into a tangle of orbits.

The neutron star grabbed the sun-like star and the old planet and booted its original companion into space. In time, the planet's star aged into a red giant and then into a white dwarf, a dying star that can only shine with stored heat.

The neutron star evolved into a fast-whirling pulsar and changes in how it spun helped scientists determine that one of the three cosmic objects dancing in space was a planet, said Harvey Richer of the University of British Columbia.

The old planet is too far away to be directly observed, but because it exerts a slight gravitational tug on the pulsar it orbits, scientists figured out its mass and position based on its pull on the pulsar, Richer said.

The old planet is among more than 100 planets detected outside our solar system.

[Junior]

5600 years is a blink of an eye in a 13 billion year existence. It's probably still there.

[Junior]

Different department.

[PatrickHenry]

From the article:

The old planet is located near the heart of a globular star cluster some 5,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, about the distance light travels in a year.

Journalism triumphs again. A light-year is about the distance light travels in a year. Yeah. More or less.

[NCLaw441]

And stop calling him Shirley (surely)!

[LRS]

...a whirling pulsar and a white dwarf...

They zoomed in on Bill Clinton standing with Robert B. Reich?

[BMCDA]

Thanks for the ping ;)

[MitchellC]

There's a difference between believeing something didn't happen because it isn't reported in the Bible and believing it didn't happen because it contradicts what is reported in the Bible. I'm not aware of any, much less most, YECs doing the former.

[Orangedog]

Like I said, I've never seen them in action here, so I don't know their entire side of the argument. I guess it could all come down to how long a day is for God. Today started for me around 6:00 AM EST. His might have started when he told Noah to build a big boat.

[Sam Cree]

bump

[MitchellC]

Your original post just came across like some very uninformed razzing, no offense.

As an aside, though, it seems to me that the YECs are at least provided with a consistent worldview for justifying their conservatism, which materialists/atheists, etc., lack.

[ThinkPlease]

Wicked cool! This discovery is pretty interesting, isn't it?

Placemarker for long thread life!

[af_vet_rr]

I would think NASA would be spending this time and money on finding out the cause of the Columbia explosion.

I think they (the engineers) knew what caused it before it happened and the only thing to be resolved is management listening to the engineers.

[jalisco555]

Journalism triumphs again. A light-year is about the distance light travels in a year. Yeah. More or less.

Yeah, give or take a light-year. LOL. Good pickup.

[kjam22]

I think NASA should be spending its time and money on figuring how to do re-entry into the atmosphere at less than 490898475945723945349 miles per hour.

Other wise it's going to make mining Mars and Pluto a lot more expensive.

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

I would think NASA would be spending this time and money on finding out the cause of the Columbia explosion.

Ya, I'm sure the cosmologists stationed at various observatories around the world could help by examining the shuttle rubble for clues. (sarcasm)

Maybe you know of someone who is an expert on how foam planets interact with tile planets.

Get serious.

[11th Earl of Mar]

If you think that it is money well spent for the federal government to pay people to guesstimate how old the universe is, YOU need to get serious.

[Aric2000]

What the devilare you talking about?

You have to be religious fanatic in order to be conservative?

You have to be a fundamentalist in order to have a consistent worldview?

Where do you live? Geez?

You sir, need to get a grip.

[js1138]

Interesting (re: post #8) how the fight against Darwin seems to leak into physics. I wonder, if Darwin had never published, whether there would be people fighting the teaching of physics in public schools, since physicists believe in the religion of physical laws. Hey, it's in their name.

[kjam22]

If you think that it is money well spent for the federal government to pay people to guesstimate how old the universe is, YOU need to get serious.

Every now and then things come into focus. This was the post of the week for sure.

[js1138]

You suppose there are people who don't want us to know the age of the universe?