{"id":568,"date":"2008-08-13T00:16:11","date_gmt":"2008-08-13T05:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=568"},"modified":"2008-08-13T00:16:44","modified_gmt":"2008-08-13T05:16:44","slug":"solar-systems-like-ours-likely-to-be-rarer-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=568","title":{"rendered":"Solar systems like ours likely to be rarer than we thought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/planet-formation.jpg\" title=\"planet-formation.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/planet-formation.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"planet-formation.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Astronomers, to their obvious delight, have discovered some 250 planetary systems beyond our own, many of them with curious properties. In particular, the discovery of several &#8220;hot Jupiters&#8221; gas giants that orbit close to their parent stars, challenges our theories of planet formation.The thinking is that gas giants can only form far away from stars because gas and dust simply gets blown away from the inner regions.<\/p>\n<p>Now Edward Thommes from the University of Guelph in Canada and pals think they know what must be happening. One idea is that gas giants migrate after they have formed. By performing a detailed numerical simulation of planet formation and repeating it many times using different starting conditions, Thommes and co say this looks a likely scenario. In fact, their data indicates that gas giant migration must be a common occurence.<\/p>\n<p>But the data also has implications for us. A migrating gas giant sweeps away all in its path and that means that solar systems like ours are likely to be rare.<\/p>\n<p>As Thommes and friends put it: &#8220;All of this leads us to predict that within the diverse ensemble of planetary systems, ones resembling our own are the exception rather than the rule.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shame!<\/p>\n<p>Ref: <a href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/0808.1439\">arxiv.org\/abs\/0808.1439<\/a>: Gas Disks to Gas Giants: Simulating the Birth of Planetary Systems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers, to their obvious delight, have discovered some 250 planetary systems beyond our own, many of them with curious properties. In particular, the discovery of several &#8220;hot Jupiters&#8221; gas giants that orbit close to their parent stars, challenges our theories of planet formation.The thinking is that gas giants can only form far away from stars [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stars-in-their-eyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}