Jumat, 22 Juni 2012

Imagine seeing this in the night sky: The little planet circled by a giant planet four times the size of Earth ¿ at a fifth of the distance of the moon

Imagine seeing this in the night sky: The little planet circled by a giant planet four times the size of Earth ¿ at a fifth of the distance of the moon

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 08:03 EST, 22 June 2012 | UPDATED: 16:40 EST, 22 June 2012


Few night-time sights offer more drama than the full Moon rising over the horizon.

Now imagine that instead of the Moon, a gas giant planet spanning three times more sky loomed over the molten landscape of a lava world.

This alien vista exists in the newly discovered two-planet system of Kepler-36.

Planetrise: In this artist's impressions, 'hot Neptune' Kepler-36c looms in the sky of its neighbour, the rocky world Kepler-36b. The two planets have repeated close encounters, experiencing a conjunction every 97 days on average

Planetrise: In this artist's impressions, 'hot Neptune' Kepler-36c looms in the sky of its neighbour, the rocky world Kepler-36b. The two planets have repeated close encounters, experiencing a conjunction every 97 days on average

The new-found system contains two planets circling a sub-giant star, which is much like the Sun except several billion years older.

The inner world, Kepler-36b, is a rocky planet 1.5 times the size of Earth and weighing 4.5 times as much. It orbits about every 14 days at an average distance of less than 11million miles.

The outer world, Kepler-36c, is a gaseous planet 3.7 times the size of Earth and weighing 8 times as much. This 'hot Neptune' orbits once each 16 days at a distance of 12 million miles.

The two planets experience a conjunction every 97 days on average. At that time, they are separated by less than 5 Earth-Moon distances.

Since Kepler-36c is much larger than the Moon, it presents a spectacular view in its neighbor's sky and such close approaches stir up tremendous gravitational tides that squeeze and stretch both planets.

'These two worlds are having close encounters,' said Josh Carter, a Hubble Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

'They are the closest to each other of any planetary system we've found,' added co-author Eric Agol of the University of Washington.

Researchers are struggling to understand how these two very different worlds ended up in such close orbits. Within our solar system, rocky planets reside close to the Sun while the gas giants remain distant.

Although Kepler-36 is the first planetary system found to experience such close encounters, it undoubtedly won't be the last. 'We're wondering how many more like this are out there,' said Mr Agol.

'We found this one on a first quick look,' added Mr Carter. 'We're now combing through the Kepler data to try to locate more.'

This spectacular find was made possible with asteroseismology - the study of stars by observing their natural oscillations.

Sunlike stars resonate like musical instruments, due to sound waves trapped in their interiors. And just like a musical instrument, the larger the star, the 'deeper' are its resonances. This trapped sound makes the stars gently breathe in and out, or oscillate.

Co-author Bill Chaplin, of the University of Birmingham, noted, 'Kepler-36 shows beautiful oscillations. By measuring the oscillations we were able to measure the size, mass and age of the star to exquisite precision.'

He added, 'Without asteroseismology, it would not have been possible to place such tight constraints on the properties of the planets.'

Mr Carter, Mr Agol, Mr Chaplin and their colleagues report their discovery in the June 21 issue of the journal Science Express.

Here's what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

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i wouldnt say we are not significant, but think about how far away the voyager satelites are, how long have they been out there? 45 yrs i think maybe + or - , and they are JUST beyond pluto, now think about the distance of light "we can see" , encompass that distance in your view here and WOW, we become a wee bit small me think

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We really are insignificant - John, Isle of Man, 22/6/2012 21:52 I don't see how, how can the existence of two dead objects, no matter how large, make you insignificant. How can you attach any significance to those worlds, that you can't see, use and are certainly not affected by? Everybody has supreme significance to themselves. - Chris, London, 22/6/2012 23:28 Because in the grand scheme of things, we are virtually nothing. We're not even a speck on the universe. We can do everything humanly possible and we will never have any effect whatsoever on even 0.0001% of the universe. Humanity has no more significance to the universe than a single atom does to our solar system.

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We really are insignificant - John, Isle of Man, 22/6/2012 21:52 I don't see how, how can the existence of two dead objects, no matter how large, make you insignificant. How can you attach any significance to those worlds, that you can't see, use and are certainly not affected by? Everybody has supreme significance to themselves.

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We really are insignificant

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