[HN Gopher] Astronomers find six planets orbiting in resonance
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Astronomers find six planets orbiting in resonance
Author : gmays
Score : 120 points
Date : 2023-11-30 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.astronomy.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.astronomy.com)
| ortusdux wrote:
| Reminds me of this: https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-
| ultimate-engineered-...
| gmuslera wrote:
| Puppeteer's home world found.
| digging wrote:
| Extremely cool that they were able to predict when to look for
| additional, undetected planets and then actually find them.
|
| Also, despite being a huge nerd for astronomical scales, I'm
| still easily shocked at them. I didn't expect a system to exist
| with six (!) larger-than-Earth planets in stable sub-Mercury
| orbits around a sun-like star. My mind tells me there's not
| enough space, that they should be ripped apart by each other or
| the star. Yet it's actually one of the most peaceful, gentle
| systems we've ever found.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Jupiter has four stable resonant satellites on the order of 1%
| of Earth's mass within an orbital radius of 1% of Earth's
| orbit. It's plausible by that example.
| digging wrote:
| Well, it's not obvious to me from what you've written that
| those satellites even are a relevant example.
|
| Can you show your work for how the masses of these 4
| satellites and the orbits of these 4 satellites and the mass
| of Jupiter are all similar to HD 110067 and its inner 4
| planets?
|
| It could be you're saying, Jupiter is heavier (relatively)
| and the satellites are closer (relatively), in which case a
| more balanced system (HD 110067) should obviously be stable?
|
| So I didn't know anything about Jupiter's inner 4 satellites,
| the closest of which is actually less than twice the distance
| of Jupiter's Roche limit, but my point remains that even if I
| did I wouldn't know if it's an obvious comparison without
| doing the math. And of course the math will work out for HD
| 110067's planets to exist in stable orbits, because they do!
| vikingerik wrote:
| I meant the Galileans. I'm going to ignore the accusatory
| tone and not debate further.
| digging wrote:
| I'm only further confused. I literally don't have any
| idea if the system you're describing is similar to the
| one in the article without looking up the data and doing
| the math. You claimed they're similar, so I figured you
| had done the math, and I wanted you to show me so I could
| believe you. If you take that as offensive, after making
| a technical comment, I don't know what the point of this
| conversation is.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| this is an inappropriate response
| digging wrote:
| In what way?
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Your being a jerk, demanding technical answers from
| someone making a off the cuff comment? "I assumed you did
| the math" is rude and inflammatory.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think the proximity is what caused the orbit resonances.
|
| So your intuition that they should affect each other is
| correct, but the end result less catastrophic.
|
| Of course, we don't know how many sibling planets crashed into
| their sun earlier...
| digging wrote:
| > Of course, we don't know how many sibling planets crashed
| into their sun earlier...
|
| My understanding is that it would be 0. A planet can't fall
| into its sun without being disturbed, because the planets and
| their sun all coalesce from the same rotating disc of
| material. If any planet had been disturbed enough to slow
| down and crash into the sun, it's hard to imagine that
| happening without the slightest disturbance to the 6 extant
| planets.
| swayvil wrote:
| Forget radioing p into the heavens. This is the more potent
| message.
| munchler wrote:
| Except that reciting pi is evidence of life and this system
| isn't.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| I noticed the yearly revolutions seemed short. Then came across
| this line in the article "The entire system could fit inside the
| orbit of Mercury".
|
| That is a very crowded space in orbit close to this star!
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| Is this relevant to the Fermi paradox? If 1% of observed systems
| are estimated to still be in resonance, that means that 99% are
| not and have had some kind of significant event to knock them out
| of resonance.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Is this relevant to the Fermi paradox? If 1% of observed
| systems are estimated to still be in resonance, that means that
| 99% are not and have had some kind of significant event to
| knock them out of resonance.
|
| The planets in our Solar System don't exhibit this type of
| resonance (some of their moons do), and we are here, so 'no'
| chongli wrote:
| These planets all have very short orbital periods, between 9
| and 55 days. By Kepler's third law (p^2 ~ a^3), we know that
| these planets are all very close to their star. Much closer
| than Mercury is to the Sun (p ~ 116 days). Their close
| proximity leads to gravitational interactions when they pass by
| one another. This gradually leads to a very stable orbital
| resonance due to constructive interference.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I spent a significant portion of my life trying to deeply
| understand resonance across multiple domains... with the goal of
| understanding the role of resonance in human interactions. Here's
| what I came up with, if you are into the topic.
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2022.8504...
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Reading now, thank you.
|
| The prospect of analyzing aggregate human behavior with
| recourse to models from physical science immediately put me in
| mind of the "Chemical Analogue Theory of the Body Politic," as
| espoused by one of the characters at a dinner party, in Bruce
| Sterling's _The Artificial Kid_:
|
| --
|
| "The Chemical Analogue Theory is, of course, an analogy," said
| Manies. He touched a stud on the heavy bracelet on his right
| wrist and in rushed his secretary Chalkwhistle, a neuter.
| Manies took pencil and slate from the neuter and began
| sketching as he talked. "As you are well aware, dear Saint
| Anne, the human body is an immensely complex system, in fact an
| ecosystem with its own flora and fauna. The same is true of the
| Body Politic, our human society. Their reactions, their
| structures are very similar. Now, the history of the human body
| is the history of its organic macromolecules, its linkages
| (pardon me) of separate atoms. Similarly, the history of the
| Body Politic is the history of many small groups and coteries,
| linked groups of friends. Of course, I would not go so far as
| to equate a single personality with a single atom. In most
| cases people would be better considered as small molecules;
| acids, bases, salts, et cetera. I often consider them atoms for
| simplicity's sake, however. "Note that the
| effect of a single atom in the human body is almost negligible;
| but if that atom is included in the right molecule, its
| influence may be crucial! It does not matter which particular
| atom enters a molecule, you understand; the important thing is
| that it be the correct kind of atom, and attached in the
| correct molecular framework! It is the framework that counts,
| you see, just as the important thing is the relationships
| within groups of friends, rather than the friends themselves.
| Of course some atoms are comparatively rare, just as some
| personality types are comparatively rare, and they can exert a
| disproportionate influence; but it is the linkages that count.
| "I regard myself as an enzyme, constantly endeavoring to link
| molecular groups into newer and more potent configurations.
| This breakfast is just such an attempt."
| aaroninsf wrote:
| I misremembered... a brunch, not a dinner party :)
| gizajob wrote:
| The beings on those worlds must have some pretty wild ideas about
| Pythagoreanism and the cosmic order
| ridgeguy wrote:
| This report reminded me of the Seven Suns artifact in A. C.
| Clarke's The City and the Stars [1]. OK, this is planets, not
| stars, but it's cool that Clarke anticipated this apparently
| stable configuration.
|
| [1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Cool and unsurprising, from the guy who came up with the Clarke
| Orbit, specifying where geostationary satellites should go.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
| abecedarius wrote:
| Man, Kepler would've loved this. One of his books was titled
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonices_Mundi
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