Strange New 'Twin' Worlds Found 239
toomanyairmiles writes "The BBC reports on the the discovery of 'twin worlds' which orbit each other, successfully blurring the line between planets and stars. 'Their existence challenges current theories about the formation of planets and stars.' according to the Journal of Science article which reports their existence. 'The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or "planemos", which are not bound to stars.'"
Just goes to show... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just great that there is more than that out there. Gives me hope for the future.
Challenging views? (Score:2, Insightful)
If a nebula is the right size, it may form a planet--and it doesn't care if there's any stars nearby. It is then affected by something's gravity, and goes careening off into space.
Additionally, to make twin planets, you'd need only a nebula that's peanut-shaped, so it collapses into two bodies.
Pic (Score:3, Insightful)
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41960000/jp
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Should religion be taught in schools? I don't mind. Just don't teach it in a science class. It's bad enough that science is treated like religion in most US classrooms.
I personally would have enjoyed a philosophy class in high school, btw.
dont they already have a name for those.. rogues? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Challenging views? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a farely rare phenomena, but not new, nor does it challenge any fundamental understanding of how objects form in space. It's just fuel for the "what is a planet" bickering that is constantly going on.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mind either if religionS are taught in school, explained, compared (especially if the atheism, agnoticism are also explained) , I do mind quite a lot when a specific religion is taught in school as if it was *the truth*, talk about brainwashing.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:1, Insightful)
How does this blow the standing knowledge out of the water? Modern planetary formation theories all focussed on our own little corner of the universe. Since about the last 13 years all these extrasolar objects are being detected, which means there is now new observational data from which theories regarding these objects can now be derieved. These objects may form via some other method, or they might form in a conventional method and are flung out of their parent systems at some point. I fail to see how the detection of these objects in any way affects the theories or concepts of planet formation around stars via accretion disks.
I find your first sentence incredibly obtuse or ignorant, given the track record and history of science over the last 500 years or so. Unless the "lunch time" is in a biblical figurative sense inspired by 2 Peter 3:8, as some would interpret it.
Re:But you need warp drive first ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Religious-based schools, yes. Public schools funded by taxpayers and frequented by people of all faiths (and non-faiths)? Never. Well, maybe a comparative religions class where the fundamental beliefs of each are discussed. Like it or not, religion and other superstitions rule our world still, and it's good to know who you're dealing with. This comparative religions class should be OPTIONAL, though, not mandatory.
I think this is what pisses me off most about the whole "intelligent" design idea. You want your kids to learn that as hard, scientific fact? Send them to your church's school. That's what they're for! You want them to learn secular sciences, send them to public school, but understand they'll get NO religious stuff at all. Freedom OF religion implies freedom FROM religion. And, no matter what way you slice it, "intelligent" design is religion pure and simple. You want to send your kids to school on the tax payers dime (I don't care if you're also a tax payer, that doesn't entitle you to change the fundamentals of the Constitution), then teach them your voodoo at home where it belongs.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurm... well, yes and no. Theory gives us an excellent start in almost all areas, but theory is only (as a maximum) as valuable as the data on which it is based. We have very little data about the composition of our galaxy (less, even, than we do about the earth, millions of years ago), so it is not shocking that we would find major gaps in our understanding (we only just recently discovered the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy (and most or all others).
First off, that's a non-sequitor. Second, "random" isn't the word you want there. When you are talking about large-scale processes, you can use ranomness as a tool to understand, but as we probe the nature of the universe we have consistently found that things that appear to have no order, are in fact very ordered. When you see two planetary objects orbiting one another, that's not random, it's the result of the gravitational forces exerted by those two bodies and, to increasingly lesser degrees, everything else in the universe. If it appears random, that's just becuase you had too little information about the forces involved.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)