Interstellar space 'full of Jupiter-size orphan planets'

"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

Well brother, just the news we need.

So much for navigating through interstellar space on Warp Drive.
At least until we've charted all these guys...

;-)

Dave

Le 19/05/11 18:21, David Spain a écrit :
Well brother, just the news we need.

So much for navigating through interstellar space on Warp Drive.
At least until we've charted all these guys...

;-)

Dave


I always thought that warp drives work only in another dimension.

Speeding within the Milky Way at almost light speed is impossible
anyway since a single wandering dust of 200 grams hitting the
spaceship has an energy of an atomic bomb of 1.4937 megatons...
[1]

So, if the spaceship can avoid a dust speck it surely can avoid
a planet...

jacob
[1] Assuming 250 000 Km/sec and E = 0.5 * m * v^2, ignoring relativistic
effects

jacob navia wrote:
Le 19/05/11 18:21, David Spain a écrit :

So much for navigating through interstellar space on Warp Drive.
At least until we've charted all these guys...



I always thought that warp drives work only in another dimension.


I always liked the way Frank Herbert solved this problem with his "Guild
Navigators(tm)" getting high on "Spice(tm)" and then just hallucinating their
way across interstellar space.

Jam enough people into an air-tight cylinder, crank the "Spice(tm)" in the
giant space-bong and EVERYONE hallucinates their way across interstellar space.

Much easier than mucking around with warp drives and/or rockets.
With enough "Spice(tm)" in my system, I too can ride atop giant sandworms!!!

Perhaps one should not mix drug use with fiction writing?
Or maybe dear Mr. Herbert was just following the writer's maxim,
"Write about what you know"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29

;-)

Dave

On May 19, 8:56*am, wrote:
"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

This is exactly what I've been saying all along.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1105....2011.303.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-147

Rogue planets and their moons simply have to exist in great numbers
by now.

As main-sequence stars consume their fuel and unavoidably blow off
considerable mass as they eventually turn themselves into white dwarfs
or neutron stars, whereas there's simply no way they can possibly hold
onto their planets when having a final mass reduction of at least 4:1
and in some cases near 8:1. It seems even once near 75% of their
progenitor mass isn’t going to be holding onto whatever planets unless
the orbital velocity of such planets slows way down.

Other nearby or passing stars and especially any rogue neutron stars
could also help pull planets away from their parent star. Otherwise
the only dynamic tidal holding method of planets sticking with their
parent star as it shrivels into a white dwarf is for them planets to
lose orbital velocity, and that’s not likely to happen.

Our sun is supposedly a third generation star, so there's many planets
from the first two stellar generations that are still out there doing
their rogue interstellar thing. One of those could be Tyche or
possibly any one of the Sirius(B) planets might not be too far away,
especially nearby as the Sirius Oort cloud is closing in on our Oort
cloud, whereas there’s no telling what could show up as seemingly out
of nowhere.

Some of the surviving gas giants or otherwise extremely icy rock
planets could have earth sized moons and even a few offering
Goldilocks survival potential, but no doubt they’d be cold and cranky
as hell unless they had tunneled deep into the ground for their
geothermal energy.

With a potential 1e12 rogue planets and their moons (some of those
Earth sized) to pick from, with our spendy JWST it shouldn't be all
that hard to locate a few within our galactic neck of the woods, and
keep track of their migrations (possibly even estimate where they
originated from).

Our moon could have easily been worth more than 8e22 kg as an icy
rogue intruder. Such and icy rogue planetoid would actually make for
a very good multigenerational spacecraft that offers terrific
interstellar capability. Otherwise, sorry about my being right again.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

On May 19, 9:21*am, David Spain wrote:
Well brother, just the news we need.

So much for navigating through interstellar space on Warp Drive.
At least until we've charted all these guys...

;-)

Dave

Exactly, it could be surprisingly crowded out there, and especially
anywhere near the hub or central bulge of a given galaxy could be
dodgeball heaven.

My swag of 1e12 could be a conservative estimate, especially if
including anything of Sedna or larger might suggest at least 1e13
wandering/rogue items per galaxy to contend with, though half again to
twice as many for the Andromeda galaxy.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

wrote:

"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

These are objects smaller than brown dwarves. It makes sense that there
would be a nearly continuous trend of objects from the largest class O
stars all the way down to comets a kilometer or two across throughout
interstallar space.

The question becomes one of estimated densities by size. How many
Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Kuiper belt are how big? How large is
the Oort cloud and how much does it overlap with the clouds of other
stars? How many planet sized objects are alone out there? How many
large objects have entire dark moon systems out there? The list of
questions only gets easy to answer once the objects are big enough to
acheive ignition and shine from their own fusion. Even with M class
stars they are too dim to be accurately surveyed beyond 20-30 light
years.

My usual model for an interstellar civilization is to develop fusion
power and fusion drives then move out into the Oort cloud and lose
interest in the denser stellar material deep in a star's gravity well.
With enough large objects out there it's a very large resource on which
to base a fusion powered interstellar civilization. Neutrino emisions
would be the way to detect such distant civilizations I suspect.

In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

wrote:

"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

These are objects smaller than brown dwarves. It makes sense that there
would be a nearly continuous trend of objects from the largest class O
stars all the way down to comets a kilometer or two across throughout
interstallar space.

The question becomes one of estimated densities by size. How many
Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Kuiper belt are how big? How large is
the Oort cloud and how much does it overlap with the clouds of other
stars? How many planet sized objects are alone out there? How many
large objects have entire dark moon systems out there? The list of
questions only gets easy to answer once the objects are big enough to
acheive ignition and shine from their own fusion. Even with M class
stars they are too dim to be accurately surveyed beyond 20-30 light
years.

My usual model for an interstellar civilization is to develop fusion
power and fusion drives then move out into the Oort cloud and lose
interest in the denser stellar material deep in a star's gravity well.
With enough large objects out there it's a very large resource on which
to base a fusion powered interstellar civilization. Neutrino emisions
would be the way to detect such distant civilizations I suspect.

I am really not surprised at this revelation. We really have no good
method of detecting small interstellar objects.

Of course, blindly setting off at relatavistic speeds is a recipe for
sure disaster! hitting even a pea-sized mass at that speed would release
the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb. So, unless you have some kind
of shielding or space-warping techniques, brute force interstellar would
be a minefield.

On May 19, 11:18*am, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

These are objects smaller than brown dwarves. *It makes sense that there
would be a nearly continuous trend of objects from the largest class O
stars all the way down to comets a kilometer or two across throughout
interstallar space.

The question becomes one of estimated densities by size. *How many
Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Kuiper belt are how big? *How large is
the Oort cloud and how much does it overlap with the clouds of other
stars? *How many planet sized objects are alone out there? *How many
large objects have entire dark moon systems out there? *The list of
questions only gets easy to answer once the objects are big enough to
acheive ignition and shine from their own fusion. *Even with M class
stars they are too dim to be accurately surveyed beyond 20-30 light
years.

My usual model for an interstellar civilization is to develop fusion
power and fusion drives then move out into the Oort cloud and lose
interest in the denser stellar material deep in a star's gravity well.
With enough large objects out there it's a very large resource on which
to base a fusion powered interstellar civilization. *Neutrino emisions
would be the way to detect such distant civilizations I suspect.

It looks as though you'll need some really good bumpers on your fusion
rocket driven spacecraft. Obviously sending a small fleet of radar
equipped probes way ahead in order to chart a viable course that would
not involve encountering wandering/rogue items of even a m3, would be
imperative.

At even 0.1c velocity, having a fleet of those scout probes with
radars looking in all directions, say five probes positioned perhaps
at least .001 ly ahead and to either side, top and bottom would give
sufficient .365 day (8.76 hour) warnings of any potential encounter,
so that evasive maneuvers could be taken.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

On May 19, 11:34*am, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
In article ,
*Doug Freyburger wrote:









wrote:

"A team of astronomers has identified a novel
new kind of galactic wanderer - lone, Jupiter-sized
planets expelled from forming solar systems
and drifting in the empty void between the stars.

The researchers, led by Takahiro Sumi of Japan's
Osaka University, spotted 10 such free-floating
"orphan planets" in data from a 2006-7
microlensing survey of our galaxy's centre, which
searched for the tell-tale sign of transiting bodies'
gravitational fields distorting light from distant
stars.

Team member David Bennett, of the University of
Notre Dame in Indiana, explained that this first
sighting in a small portion of the Milky Way
points to enormous numbers of orphans. He
said: "Our survey is like a population census.
We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based
on these data, can estimate overall numbers in
the galaxy.""

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/19/orphan_planets/

These are objects smaller than brown dwarves. *It makes sense that there
would be a nearly continuous trend of objects from the largest class O
stars all the way down to comets a kilometer or two across throughout
interstallar space.

The question becomes one of estimated densities by size. *How many
Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Kuiper belt are how big? *How large is
the Oort cloud and how much does it overlap with the clouds of other
stars? *How many planet sized objects are alone out there? *How many
large objects have entire dark moon systems out there? *The list of
questions only gets easy to answer once the objects are big enough to
acheive ignition and shine from their own fusion. *Even with M class
stars they are too dim to be accurately surveyed beyond 20-30 light
years.

My usual model for an interstellar civilization is to develop fusion
power and fusion drives then move out into the Oort cloud and lose
interest in the denser stellar material deep in a star's gravity well.
With enough large objects out there it's a very large resource on which
to base a fusion powered interstellar civilization. *Neutrino emisions
would be the way to detect such distant civilizations I suspect.

I am really not surprised at this revelation. We really have no good
method of detecting small interstellar objects.

Of course, blindly setting off at relatavistic speeds is a recipe for
sure disaster! hitting even a pea-sized mass at that speed would release
the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb. So, unless you have some kind
of shielding or space-warping techniques, brute force interstellar would
be a minefield.

Exactly, whereas even at 0.1c is going to be a highly speculative
gamble, even if the pointy nose of the interstellar craft were made of
solid titanium and coated with a thick layer of carbonado.

For interstellar treks, it looks as though we'll need some really good
bumpers on our fusion and ion rocket driven spacecrafts. Obviously
sending a small fleet of radar equipped probes way ahead in order to
chart a viable course that would not involve encountering wandering/
rogue items of even a m3, would be imperative.

At even 0.1c velocity, having a fleet of those scout probes with
radars looking in all directions, say five probes positioned perhaps
at least .001 ly ahead and to either side, top and bottom would give
sufficient .365 day (8.76 hour) warnings of any potential encounters,
so that evasive maneuvers could be taken.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”