 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||
Isn't that close to the size of our sun? In any case 10 times the size of Jupiter is a big-ass planet.
There is some info out there about how much bigger Jupiter would have to be to turn into a star.
One wonders if these results can be extrapolated to the time required for stellar formation.....
The problem with fast condensation is where the kinetic energy of all the original primordial particles in the condensing cloud goes. The usual model says that you have to radiate it away slowly as particles fall into the gravity well and heat things up.
At any given time, you have a near-equilibrium between the pull of gravity on the masses and the outward pressure of the hot gas. This "equilibrium" is dynamic and allows further collapse as the residual heat shines itself away. The usual thinking says that if you somehow force the cloud together faster than it can get rid of the energy in this way, it just blows apart again.
The article doesn't really say why the fast collapse works and how the primordial energy is dissipated. I certainly can't guess.
Don't know why this is significant.Me neither. I do know it's useful to physicists. It helps pry loose the next NAS grant. It gets tenure. And invitations to conferences.
My brother is at the fore of this type of research, into planet formations. He's an expert on black holes, and he is interested in dust particles. Don't ask me. We don't talk about this stuff at dinner. Tonight over turkey, for example, the closest we got to serious phsyics was the story that when Farraday was asked what in his life he might do differently, could he choose, he replied, "I'd learn algebra."
That wasn't much consolation to a moron like me, but it's nice to know that one of our greatest scientist punted the x's and y's, too.
My brother has made a career of the Hubble, Las Alamos & Harvard labs, and that really big computer in California. Or so he tells me. He's pretty good at math, too, which means that he's taken many a bath on the stock market. While phsycists can't figure out the universe (hell, they're still trying for some "unified" theory -- I've got a dozen of those), they think they can manage the cumulative output of the millions motivated by greed, taking advice from brokers motivated by greed, and buying stocks inflated by greedy CFO's. I hope that when they get their "unified" theories together they can account for human nature.
Meanwhile, it's kinda cool to think that Jupiter was formed in a few hundred thousand years. Time, as I understand it, aint' what it seems. But it's been a long time since my brother last tried to explain the theory of relativity to me. I couldn't get past the fare of those trains. And I could never figure out which way the wind was blowing, even though the smoke from the electric train was heading south...
I dunno. You tell me. I ain't gonna ask my bro.
|
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||