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 “hot Jupiters” 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.
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.
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.
As Thommes and friends put it: “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.”
Shame!
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0808.1439: Gas Disks to Gas Giants: Simulating the Birth of Planetary Systems
So, when will we get news that, in fact, a hot Jupiter is on its way to OUR solar system, and we have to peace out ASAP?
i guess the search for spock and warf just got a bit harder?
Chuck. You really are the reason why when OUR JUPITER starts getting close to Earth, we’d be better just sticking around and letting it finish the job that you imbeciles have started: AKA breeding retardation into the mainstream.
Darn it! Will have to redo my GURPS Traveller/Space universe again.
AAAAAAAAAH The irony!its hurting!!!
David,i am talking about you man,you calling someone a retard,when you dont seem to get chucks post,i guess humor is not the thing for you.
No what really is going on here is that you seem to have some issues and you start flaming without provocation,my guess is(i know its speculating but who cares im talking about david)that you like imbecile and retard to feel good about yourself but it does in no way make yourself “smart”
If i`m righ you are what they call a “troll”
happy to await your reply
Why are people mean? I just don’t get it. It’s not even relevant.
happy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your replyhappy to await your reply
Wow, bazzzz. He must have been a troll hoping some responder would portray themselves as an idiot in their reply. You did a good job but I’m not all that impressed. Seeming an idiot is easy. I do it all the time.
People are mean as it gives them a bigger chance to reproduce,so its hardwired in our genome.I agree its not relevant but its fun in the “practice world” in the real world its not much better tough.
I love idiots;)
And Trolls too it confirms my negative impression of this world.You like responding to trolls ed?
Chuck, David…
Calculate how long it will take for Jupiter’s orbit to gradually constrict, enough to affect the earth.
Now how does that compare to when our own Sun will become a red giant and toast most of the inner solar system anyway?
It’s possible that Jupiter won’t come towards the Sun… as much as the Sun comes to Jupiter.
You all don’t understand, Chuck had it right. It’s not OUR planet “Jupiter” that is coming for us (or not coming for us, but the things that are possibly destroying other worlds), it’s a gigantic star CALLED a “hot Jupiter” that comes from really far away and destroys everything in its path.
Learn to read?
PS, we’ll just leave David here when we fly away…
John, you do realize that “hot jupiters” are planets, not stars.
I don’t like the reasoning behind this paper – hot Jovians are easier to detect by virtue of their sheer size and orbital period, so we detect more of them. That in turn means that solar systems containing them are more common, by the author’s deduction!
Someone call me an idiot if I have this wrong.
[…] Jupiters migrations Arxiv features today a blog entry making the case for the rarity of our solar system, arguing that if we want to stick with the current planetary formation theories we have to conclude […]
[…] Last is our token space advocacy story. It appears that solar systems analogous to ours are somewhat rare, with a high incidence of gas giants in close orbit around their suns.This calls into question our current theories on planetary formation and provides interesting speculation on whether or not worlds depicted in science fiction (Yavin 4 in Star Wars or Allen Steel’s Coyote) could readily exist. I’d be interested to know if Kepler’s law still holds up in the wake of all these discoveries. […]
You’re totally right Mark. I was about to say the same thing. The fact that we are almost exclusively discovering Hot Jupiters is because they are dead easy to detect. As far as we know, there could be rocky planets all over the place… we just can’t bloody see them yet.
Also might be worth noting that we were speculating about what Titan might be like… too far out to be habitable for us. But if it was in orbit about something closer, that’s not a problem… as long as it’s not too close. So that makes me wonder if they’ve thought about hot Jupiter’s capturing rather than sweeping away inner rocky planets…
Titan will present interesting challenges and it’s doubtless that we will encounter unforeseen problems with living on the moon, but I think that it is an excellent candidate in the outer solar system as a way-station. It has a dense atmosphere that provides protection from micro-meteorites and radiation, it is stocked with many of the raw materials that we use in industry, if we have the chemistry to take advantage of it. Titan also has significant gravity compared to the rest of Saturn’s major moons and it’s dense, ”wet” air means that dust and fines will not be an issue and habitats will be easier to contain.
“Chuck. You really are the reason why when OUR JUPITER starts getting close to Earth, we’d be better just sticking around and letting it finish the job that you imbeciles have started: AKA breeding retardation into the mainstream.”
…Does that mean you want Jupiter to breed with the retards? ’cause that’ll, like, never happen. ’cause the retards are people. And Jupiter is, like, a planet. Dude.
…But seriously folks, my thought is that even if there is this trend for gassy migration, then it doesn’t mean that rocky planets can’t also be the norm at a given point in a solar system’s life cycle. If gas giants start their lives even further out, couldn’t it mean an even longer lifespan for closer-oriented rocky planets?
@mark and luke:
The whole point of this article is to explain why that way of thinking is incorrect. Rocky inner planets are less likely to occur not because we can’t see them easily but beacause the computer models almost always show the giants migrating inwards
Science changes every 6 months, while the universe slowly changes within the time frame of billions of years. Two years from now, astronomers discover that to find planetary systems like our own they must exclude all the solar systems that obviously have planets, while also excluding all the ones that obviously don’t have planets, while finding a great majority that may or may not have planets of that group a good sized majority will have planets, and a good percentage of those will be like ours. Recalibrate your instruments and realize the scientific community is still full of it, better lesser so by the day, the absence of evidence is not evidence at all, a blind man who says the universe is all black is missing the bigger picture.
[…] Solar systems like ours rare? This is in keeping with ideas about giant planet migration.
Science doesnt change every 6 months, its a continuous process where new discoveries are made all the time and scientists are competing to have the best interpretation of the findings made.
Sciene can be changed if someone provides a more covincing explanation for the accepted facts, facts can be changed if someone provides a convincing explanation of why the fact is wrong.
Not to be mean, but dude, seriously. Proofread.
[…] but early signs point to our solar system being of a fairly rare kind. […]
[…] ArxivBlog Vía: […]
I think some of the logic the article is not well explained.
It is valid to look for Hot Jupiter planets to find earth-like planets. Why? Because the Large planets “protect” the inner ones by sweeping away deadly asteroids etc.
In other words, an earth-sized planet without a Jupiter further out is constantly being slammed with extinction-level space junk. The key is that the earth-size planet must be inside the orbit of the Jupiter-sized planet.
So, if the big planets are too near the sun, there can be no earth-like inside the orbit to be protected. If there is no big planet at all, then any earth-like planets are dead orbs riddled with new craters.
[…] systems beyond our own solar system. These efforts can lead to the discovery of exotic formations. Solar systems like ours likely to be rarer than we thought contains this paragraph: Astronomers, to their obvious delight, have discovered some 250 planetary […]