Hot Jupiters May Indicate Hospitable Planets

eldavojohn writes "An interesting article from National Geographic points out that other solar systems which contain planets like a 'Hot Jupiter' have a higher chance of also containing Earth-like planets." From the article: "'We now think there is a new class of ocean-covered--and possibly habitable--planets in solar systems unlike our own,' Raymond said. The simulations also showed that rocky planets known as hot Earths may often form when hot Jupiters push material forward during their inward treks. But hot Earths, which can be up to five times bigger than our Earth, orbit closer to their stars and are not likely to support life. Even if water does contribute to their formation, most hot Earths probably end up dry, study co-author Raymond says. "

Worst story title...EVAR!

[SIGFPE]

The story actually says "We don't think that they're really good places to harbor life, if you need liquid water on the surface [to support life]."

But of course if you can get more hits for advertising on /. by saying the complete opposite of the story then by all means do so.

Cool, this confirms how high I am!

[spun]

Jeebus, buddy, why start with love? Why not just start with randomness? You have enough of that, you automatically have everything else you mentioned. And you have an infinite amount of that. Any particular slice of that randomness might define a starting condition, a set of rules to eveolve the starting condition, or a point along that evolution.

Love is such a hokey place to start. Why not shoot higher? Start with awareness, or consciousness, or reference, or division or some other abstract concept that hasn't already been done to death. Love. Fegh. I did that one when I was four. Not that it's not nice and all, but starting from there necessarily leads to some mind numbing inconsitencies when you think far enought through the implications.

Here's a fun one: You start with a lack of any definition whatsoever. This lack of definition necessarily includes all possible definitions as well as all lack of definition, to say it doesn't is to define it. So zero is not nothingness any more than it is the lack of nothingness. Some definitions imply a set of laws and a starting condition, also conveniently contained within our infinite undefined nothingness. Zero becomes one because it needs something to refer to it, and one becomes two for the same reason. The Ain Soph becomes the Way, which becomes Yin and Yang. Yang is nothing, refering to everything. Yin is everything, refering to nothing, and the way is the laws which move the two forward, becoming the ten-thousand things (or the world, as it is called in Buddhist philosophy.) I just made that one up off the top of my head.

Honestly, you kids these days, you think you invented this shit. Gah, stinks of the dharma, doesn't have a teacher to indoctrinate him into a particular path: this is what we get. "It's all love!" Well, you know where that leads?

God is love.
Love is blind.
Stevie Wonder is blind.
Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

Seriously, you should read a bit more of the classics.