God not needed in Earth Formation

[thaumaturgy]

I try not to get too captivated by cover stories (heck, New Scientist discovers the secret of the universe every second week).

Years ago some of my research was mentioned in passing in New Scientist. At the time I was quite proud. It was about the same time I got interviewed by Public Radio International and was mentioned in an enviro journal. Then I got my picture on the front of a journal (even though I never published in it!)

Oh I was high on the hog.

I'm afraid that's truer than I'd like it to be. If that's all you meant then apologies for getting so upset.

Maybe this forum makes me paranoid.

And I'm too afraid that in a few years I'll become another publish-or-perish scientist.

Don't worry. You will. Unless you wind up in industry at which point you often lose the ability get published and the only way people "know" you is if they see your name a patent. I miss publishing.

But one needn't publish garbage, one need only publish what they learn so others may learn from it. I realized a couple years after I published one article that I had failed to take into account one set of chemical species, as I was, ironically, reading an article that was, in part, critiquing my earlier article. It was a great point! I was ridiculously happy that someone had caught this possible error and published it.

That was how things are supposed to work. I hadn't even thought of that point. It wasn't a major or massive change, but it lead to a deeper more accurate understanding of this particular chemical process we were working on.

I don't expect folks like AV to understand this, it's how science works and it is part of the joy of being a scientist. Everyone likes to be right all the time, but unless you can relinquish your pride you can't really see how science should work or how knowledge must be treated and passed around and examined and questioned by everyone.

So I had my pride from getting some "press" for my stuff and then I had to relinquish my pride just a bit because I wasn't perfect. None of us are. Anyone who thinks they have a lock on "The Truth (c)" is probably in error. Anyone who claims they have a lock on the truth is probably in need of more questioning.

 

[AV1611VET]

AV, as for your question, Atom and others are right, the Sun is our specific star. All stars are stars but not all stars are The Sun.

I asked it before, and I'll ask it again --- what is a [small ess] sun-like star? Is there a moon-like star? A planet-like star? (I know there are red stars and dwarf stars and radio stars.) But ouitside of OH, BE A FINE GIRL, KISS ME RIGHT NOW, what is a sun-like star?

 

[Naraoia]

Don't worry. You will. Unless you wind up in industry at which point you often lose the ability get published and the only way people "know" you is if they see your name a patent. I miss publishing. [...]

So I had my pride from getting some "press" for my stuff and then I had to relinquish my pride just a bit because I wasn't perfect. None of us are. Anyone who thinks they have a lock on "The Truth (c)" is probably in error. Anyone who claims they have a lock on the truth is probably in need of more questioning.

Oh, I'm not afraid of hurting my pride... What I wish I could avoid is the situation when "X needs a paper" and X ends up publishing a big heap of almost-raw data because he needs a paper. (I happened to be invited to a discussion of an X's paper-to-be by the guy who supervised the summer project I did. Maybe I didn't really get what was going on but I didn't think X's data were ripe for publishing in anything but a database I don't know what the finished paper looks like, though.)

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Two rocky planets have collided, destroying each other in the process and leaving a massive ring of dust surrounding a star almost 300 light years from our sun.

HEAVENS ABOVE: An artist's rendering depicts planets colliding in a sun-like binary system about 300 light years from Earth, in the constellation Aries

LINK

Its interesting to see there is evidence of two large bodies colliding in another solar system, particularly as it seems the same thing happened on to the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, in which the Earth-Moon system was created.

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

It seem solar nebula’s are everywhere, forming planets, some undoubtedly similar to the earth.

Edge-on Protoplanetary Disk in the Orion Nebula

LINK

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Binary star systems may be more favourable to planetary formation than single star systems like our solar system.

Wouldn't it be amazing to see a double sunset just like those portrayed in science-fiction movies - such as the sunset on Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in the movie "Star Wars - A New Hope". Well, astronomers have used the Spitzer Space Telescope to find that places such as this exist around 40 percent of the close binary star systems that they surveyed.
Astronomers have known for quite some time that exceptionally wide binary systems could form planetary systems. In such systems the two stars are typically more than 1000 AU apart (one AU, or Astronomical Unit, is the average distance between the Earth and the sun). In fact, of the roughly 200 exo-planets planets discovered so far, about 50 of them were found in wide binary systems.
The recent Spitzer survey of 69 binary systems with separations of less than 500 AU found that approximately 40 percent of these systems showed evidence of planet-forming debris disks. These observations suggest that planetary systems appear to be at least as likely around binary stars as they are around single stars! However, astronomers were shocked to find that the disks were even more common (~60 percent) around the tightest binaries (separated by less that 3 AU). In these extremely close binaries the observed disks orbited both members of the binary - any planets in these disks would have a double sunset just like the one seen on the fictional planet Tatooine. It's not entirely clear why planet formation seems to favour tight binaries over single stars and wide binaries - one possibility is that they may be dustier locations.
The Spitzer survey also hints that not all binary systems are ideal for planet formation. In particular, binaries with separations between 3-50 AU appear to have far fewer disks. This tends to suggest that planets only seem to form around very tight binaries and fairly wide binaries but not in-between.

LINK

 

[Radagast]

And I'm too afraid that in a few years I'll become another publish-or-perish scientist.

Hang onto your ideals, my dear. Don't publish anything you'd be ashamed to show your grandchildren.

 

[Radagast]

This is why science makes one "discovery" after another.

AV, that's not entirely charitable, you know (Matt 5:16 and all that).

 

[Naraoia]

Hang onto your ideals, my dear. Don't publish anything you'd be ashamed to show your grandchildren.

So long as I get paid enough to eat, dress and stay warm...

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

It seems as if NASA using the Hubble telescope has made the first detection of organic molecules outside our solar system. They were found in a Jupiter sized planet orbiting another star. What this does is show that organ chemistry is universal and not just limited to our neck of the woods, this also shows that in future it my be possible to detect the signs of life on other living worlds.

It’s amazing to think that we can now detect individual compounds in the atmospheres of distant worlds, when this was impossible to do with solar system objects a century ago, I personally think that life on another distant world will be indirectly proven before this century is out.


LINK

 

[Radagast]

So long as I get paid enough to eat, dress and stay warm...

I hope so! Scotland can get cold!

 

[Naraoia]

I hope so! Scotland can get cold!

Luckily I don't have to spend all my life here (not that I would mind, it's a beautiful place...)

 

[uberd00b]

Oh wow, I've never seen that pic. That's spectacular.

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Oh wow, I've never seen that pic. That's spectacular.

here's some more solar nebula's forming in Orion.

Hubble has captured vivid views of newly forming stars inside the Orion nebula. Stars form when a cloud of interstellar gas collapses under the force of its own gravity. Because the cloud is spinning slowly, it leaves behind a dark disk of orbiting debris that may well form a planetary system.

Planets are born in the spinning disks of debris left behind as stars form. The matter in these disks gradually collects into ever larger lumps that ultimately become planet-sized.

In the picture (four sections) the red dot at the center of each object is a young star. Surrounding each star is a dark disk of debris. About 4.6 billion years ago, before planets formed around our Sun, the solar system probably looked like this.

LINK

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Here's another argument waiting for AV.


Astronomers have sighted a very dense planet-sized object that orbits its parent star in just four days and six hours.
The object, COROT-exo-3b, fits into the category of a failed star known as a brown dwarf, but the team that made the discovery has not ruled out the possibility that it is a planet.
Brown dwarfs are failed stars. They burn lithium but are not massive enough to generate the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen and helium that powers real stars. Planets do none of that.
"It has puzzled us; we're not sure where to draw the boundary between planets and brown dwarfs," said Hans Deeg, an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) in the Canary Islands, Spain.

LINK

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Astronomers almost ready to go after Earth sized planets, proving once and for all, there is nothing special about the Earth.

The hunt for extraterrestrial life is getting a major boost from revolutionary new technology that will give some of the world's largest telescopes the capability to detect Earth-size planets outside of our solar system, a feat not equaled even by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The technique, called nulling interferometry, combines the light captured by several large telescopes to mimic a single giant telescope with enough power to detect a quarter on the moon from Earth.
"The goal is nothing less than finding the first ever Earth-like planet orbiting around a star," said planet hunter Geoff Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley. "We've never found one."

LINK

The array of telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert collectively known as the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) is currently being outfitted with a nulling interferometry device called PRIMA. The technology will give the combined telescopes precision equivalent to the distance a human hair grows in a minute — 0.0003 millimeter — from 100 meters away.
"PRIMA will revolutionize exoplanet detection and our understanding of other solar systems," said Fred Kamphues, a telescope expert at Dutch company TNO, which built a key part of the device called the Star Separator.

 

[AV1611VET]

Astronomers almost ready to go after Earth sized planets, proving once and for all, there is nothing special about the Earth.

Doing what, once and for all???

 

[cloudsrider]

Doing what, once and for all???

Demonstrate a statistically significant number of Earth size and chemical composition planets orbiting in the terrestrial region around stars similar to our Sun pretty much proves that Earth is not particularly unique doesn't it? Incidentally, in response to your earlier vapidity, Sol type stars are those similar to our Sun, ie. stars with similar elemental composition (second or later generation) and size. There are many such stars, and many that are dissimilar stars, larger, smaller, first gen, etc. Star formation is a fascinating subject about which we actually know a gret deal, "we" in this useage indicating people who actually study and learn as opposed to fundies.

 

[AV1611VET]

Demonstrate a statistically significant number of Earth size and chemical composition planets orbiting in the terrestrial region around stars similar to our Sun pretty much proves that Earth is not particularly unique doesn't it?

I didn't quite get this --- it's not even a sentence --- but, your word "proves" aside --- (which I'll always call someone out on) --- the earth is unique, as it is the first physical object that came into existence ex nihilo, thus making this planet's existence longer than any object (known or unknown) in the universe.

Incidentally, in response to your earlier vapidity, Sol type stars are those similar to our Sun, ie. stars with similar elemental composition (second or later generation) and size. There are many such stars, and many that are dissimilar stars, larger, smaller, first gen, etc.

I'm quite familiar with star classification and the mnenomic phrase: Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me right now, sweetie. Our sun, I believe, is a Class K (kiss) star.

Star formation is a fascinating subject about which we actually know a gret deal, "we" in this useage indicating people who actually study and learn as opposed to fundies.

Fundies who deal with Creation vis-a-vis star formation, would have no reason to study and learn about our sun's "formation".

 

[Nathan Poe]

I didn't quite get this --- it's not even a sentence --- but, your word "proves" aside --- (which I'll always call someone out on) --- the earth is unique, as it is the first physical object that came into existence ex nihilo, thus making this planet's existence longer than any object (known or unknown) in the universe.

That might mean something if it weren't a complete load of mythology.

(and I mean that in the most respectful possible way)

I'm quite familiar with star classification and the mnenomic phrase: Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me right now, sweetie. Our sun, I believe, is a Class K (kiss) star.Fundies who deal with Creation vis-a-vis star formation, would have no reason to study and learn about our sun's "formation".

Fundies such as yourself find no reason to study much of anything.