
Lonely planets found which float freely through the Milky Way - kschua
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/lonely-planets-found-which-float-freely-through-the-milky-way-20110519-1etm3.html
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anigbrowl
More seriously: <http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-147>

_The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass
planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many
of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as
common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions
of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone._

wtf

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nitrogen
What percentage of dark matter could this explain?

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orev
My thought exactly. The whole "dark matter" thing seems like just a huge
fudge-factor.

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bmm6o
That's exactly what it is. It's the difference between estimating mass based
on visible light and estimating mass based on gravitational effects. If both
those estimates are accurate, it implies the existence of a lot of non-
luminescent matter. So some scientists look for "dark matter", while others
try to find flaws with either estimation.

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anigbrowl
Now, witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station.

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mixmastamyk
"Fire at will, commander."

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vorg
Not funny.

The most effective means of interstellar travel may be bases within planets or
asteroids, not spaceships. When humans have communities on the Moon and Mars,
perhaps they'll build habitats inside asteroids, then with a few nudges to
some of them, upset the entire gravitational equilibrium of the asteroid belt,
slinging those asteroids out of the solar system, via the gravity fields of
the giant gas planets. Humans are more likely to survive interstellar trips
buried inside planets than a spaceship's husk.

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mixmastamyk
I don't follow, this is a star-wars pun thread.

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Valectar
This is a bit confusing, since a planet is defined as "a celestial body
orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its
own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has
cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals.", the relevant part being
"Orbiting a star or stellar remnant". I wouldn't think it would be possible to
have a freely floating planet.

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ugh
Yawn. Yeah, if you have a deep affection for semantic pettiness, planets
without stars are not possible.

This points to a problem with our definition. For most people planets are
anything spherical that’s too small to be a star and doesn’t orbit another one
of those spherical non-stars. That’s certainly the definition this article
uses.

I’m not really sure how one could be confused by that. One might be petty
about it – but confused?

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gatlin
You called him petty twice for adhering to definitions, but without these
definitions it is difficult to speak precisely. The other part of your comment
was much more constructive: perhaps our definition should be amended. Until
the, no, these cannot be planets by definition. What is wrong with that?

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ugh
Does the pettiness solve a problem with our communication? I would argue that
it doesn't. I would be very surprised if anyone was actually confused by this
or other similar articles. This is not even so much a problem with
preciseness. All those articles say, in so many words, that they are talking
about 'planets that don't orbit stars'. They amend the definition right there
and then, problem solved.

This is a common way of describing things. Something is described in terms of
something else, the properties that are different are pointed out separately.
One might describe an e-book in terms of a book made of paper, pointing out,
along the way, the important differences. Since e-books and books made of
paper are very similar nobody would protest if, in that context (and after the
explanation of the differences), the naked word 'book' would be used to refer
to e-books.

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bartl
I think is less surprising than the fact that Jupiter, and in fact all 4 big
planets in our solar system, are actually just gas bubbles, and not actually
not the rocky balls us ordinary people imagine as planets. That's right: they
have no surface.

These planets are just too small to be stars.

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TheMatrixDNA
This was a preview of the astronomical models of the Theory of Matrix / DNA,
20 years ago. Lonely planets float freely in space until they have close to a
star and be caught in its orbit. The energy of the star reaches the core of
the planet which is a germ of star and triggering the start of a nuclear
reaction. When the planet's consumes its mass and becomes light it escapes
from the stellar orbit, returning to float in space, it grows becoming a
pulsar and then unfolds as a supernova. In <http://theuniversalmatrix.com>
website everything is explained.

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ck2
I wonder if they are moving fairly fast because with that much mass, if they
have not been sucked into a star/black hole yet, then their slingshot would
have massive momentum.

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sgt
Also known as "Rogue planets". (Source: Star Trek Enterprise ep. "Rogue
Planet").

Sure enough it's fiction, but I can't think of a better nickname.

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latch
Small dyson spheres?

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karamazov
Way too small - they'd have to contain a star, so they'd need to be at least
as massive as one.

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latch
For a smaller enclosure, is there no alternative to a star? What's the purpose
of the star anyways? Heat and light? What if the sphere was perfectly
insulated. Perhaps once you replace a star with something else, it ceases
being a dyson sphere (by definition)

(obviously, I'm not a physicist!)

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extension
Stars are balls of matter massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion from their
own gravity. The fusion reaction is what releases all the energy.

