Glow of Alien Planets Detected in 'Milestone' Observations

Moderate Mammal wrote:

I have an obvious question. If you take a look at the artist's
pictorial in the link below..how is that possible? Is it simply a
matter of centripetal force?

http://tinyurl.com/4d4hy

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/03...et_direct.html

snip

How is what possible? If you mean that the planet seems partly
submerged in the star, it isn't supposed to be: it's intended to be
shown passing (or re-emerging from) behind the star, as if seen from
quite close up.

--
Odysseus

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 06:35:39 GMT, Odysseus
wrote:

Moderate Mammal wrote:

I have an obvious question. If you take a look at the artist's
pictorial in the link below..how is that possible? Is it simply a
matter of centripetal force?

http://tinyurl.com/4d4hy

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/03...et_direct.html

snip

How is what possible? If you mean that the planet seems partly
submerged in the star, it isn't supposed to be: it's intended to be
shown passing (or re-emerging from) behind the star, as if seen from
quite close up.

Actually, I meant that the orbit seemed too close for comfort meaning
the planet wasn't swallowed because of the Star's gravitational pull.

--
Keith
-------------------------------------

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_____

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Moderate Mammal wrote:

snip

http://tinyurl.com/4d4hy

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/03...et_direct.html

snip

Actually, I meant that the orbit seemed too close for comfort meaning
the planet wasn't swallowed because of the Star's gravitational pull.

The article doesn't say much about the relative sizes of the planet
and the star, so you can't really tell how close they are. At any
rate (addressing your comment to Colin) planetary orbits don't need
to be "sustained"; they're generally stable over billions of years.
As long as a planet's not so close to the star that it boils away or
that it experiences significant drag from the star's atmosphere or
corona, there's no kinematic lower limit for the size of its orbit.
The smaller the orbit, the faster the planet travels, matching the
inward gravitational pull with forward (i.e. outward) momentum.

--
Odysseus

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:13:02 GMT, Odysseus
wrote:

Moderate Mammal wrote:

snip

http://tinyurl.com/4d4hy

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/03...et_direct.html

snip

Actually, I meant that the orbit seemed too close for comfort meaning
the planet wasn't swallowed because of the Star's gravitational pull.

The article doesn't say much about the relative sizes of the planet
and the star, so you can't really tell how close they are. At any
rate (addressing your comment to Colin) planetary orbits don't need
to be "sustained"; they're generally stable over billions of years.
As long as a planet's not so close to the star that it boils away or
that it experiences significant drag from the star's atmosphere or
corona, there's no kinematic lower limit for the size of its orbit.
The smaller the orbit, the faster the planet travels, matching the
inward gravitational pull with forward (i.e. outward) momentum.


Thanks.
--
Keith
-------------------------------------

Fed up with illegal immigration?
_____
http://www.saveourstate.org
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frostyA.htm
http://www.americanpatrol.com/LINKS/LINKS.html
http://www.vdare.com/links.htm
http://www.stoptheinvasion.com/links/
_____

"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor
_____

"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
_____

"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature

----------
To send mail: remove hutch

Moderate Mammal wrote:


It's the close orbit, not 'contact' that seems impossible. Meaning
how the planet can sustain orbit considering the Star's intense
gravitational force.


http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/phys...Mechanics.html

Extrasolar Planets
http://exoplanets.org/

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/planets/

Hi Sam Thanks for that "extrasolar site" In the future we will be able
to detect 50 LY away planets as we see the Earth from the Moon.
It would be nice to find one that looks like a blue marble. Bert