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Why are so many extrasolar planets gas giants?

Blogs > {CC}StealthBlue
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{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 04:38:58
August 13 2009 04:27 GMT
#1
Or "Hot Jupiter's" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extrasolar_planets#Extrasolar_planets

Kind of discouraging, is it possible a solid planet could exist further away from the sun if a Gas giant is closer to a Star(s). I mean if a massive planet is farther in than that of a smaller one; would that not fuck up the gravity in the Solar System even more so than if it was like Sol with Jupiter farther out from the Sun that Earth allowing objects to be pulled by Jupiter's massive gravity compared to Earth's?

*
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
ZeeTemplar
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
United States557 Posts
August 13 2009 04:32 GMT
#2
Can you explain what you mean more clearer? I am intrigued though.
Jangbi storms!!!
Sigh
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada2433 Posts
August 13 2009 04:49 GMT
#3
God made it that way
NaDa/Flash/Thorzain Fan
SatouxKisei
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
233 Posts
August 13 2009 04:58 GMT
#4
On August 13 2009 13:32 ZeeTemplar wrote:
Can you explain what you mean more clearer? I am intrigued though.

more clearly*
Crunchums
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States11144 Posts
August 13 2009 05:07 GMT
#5
because you touch yourself at night obvobvobvobv
brood war for life, brood war forever
v1rtu0so
Profile Joined September 2008
United States140 Posts
August 13 2009 05:11 GMT
#6
isn't it simply because we are only able to detect very large extrasolar planets?
certainly none of the extrasolar planets are visible by any current telescope. my understanding is that they find these by measuring the "wobble" of the star caused by the gravity of a large planet in its system
I feel the air from alien planet...
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24766 Posts
August 13 2009 05:18 GMT
#7
Yes, rocky planets tend to form inside the frost line of the solar system, whereas gas giants and icy planets tend to form beyond it.
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24766 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 05:30:54
August 13 2009 05:28 GMT
#8
When the solar system was forming (due to the process of condensation of nebular gasses), the matter close to the sun had trouble condensing due to the extreme heat. Only rocky and metallic substances were able to form. Further from the sun, lighter materials could form. There was actually much more light material than rocky or metallic material, so gas giants prevailed further away.

The inner planets, mercury, venus, earth, and mars are all called the terrestrial planets.

The outer planets, jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune are called the jovian planets, and are not rocky or metallic.

Therefore, you won't find many rocky planets far from the sun....
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
Freyr
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
United States500 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 05:54:41
August 13 2009 05:44 GMT
#9
As others have said, thusfar we have found extrasolar planets exclusively from behavior of their host stars (wobble due to gravity, and I believe occasionally variations of brightness due to planets passing in front of their stars), and consequently we won't tend to find smaller less massive planets.

(Conjecture warning!) Then again, some of the planets we've predicted might not be there at all - after all, we have not directly observed them. It is interesting to note that the existence of Neptune was predicted from the orbit of Uranus before it was directly observed. The same astronomer who successfully predicted Neptune attempted to account for the oddities of Mercury's orbit by predicting that another, smaller planet existed closer to the sun. This planet was never found - instead it was discovered that Einstein's general theory of relativity correctly predicts Mercury's orbit where Newtonian gravity failed.

There is nothing to suggest that there aren't other star systems very similar to our own, and nothing to suggest that there aren't planets that are, were, or may be in the future habitable in the way Earth is today. So sleep well knowing that aliens may yet exist...

(It is interesting to note that the general theory of relativity fails to explain the motion of many stars in galaxies, and the interaction between galaxies. The response of many physicists (cosmologists), instead of believing that general relativity is wrong, is to predict the existence of a mysterious substance called dark matter. This dark matter would interact with known matter in no way, except through gravitational influence. If this unknown, invisible substance exists, Einstein's theory remains safe.)
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5986 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-11-16 03:50:40
August 13 2009 07:39 GMT
#10
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
BookTwo
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
1985 Posts
August 13 2009 07:52 GMT
#11
On August 13 2009 13:49 Sigh wrote:
God made it that way

jello_biafra
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
United Kingdom6641 Posts
August 13 2009 11:35 GMT
#12
Because they are the easiest for us to find.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions | aka Probert[PaiN] @ iccup / godlikeparagon @ twitch | my BW stream: http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/jello_biafra
lesser_good
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
Canada698 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 15:26:08
August 13 2009 15:25 GMT
#13
On August 13 2009 13:49 Sigh wrote:
God made it that way

sigh.......
well isint that a convenient answer to all the worlds mysteries
pew pew
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24766 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 16:15:38
August 13 2009 16:14 GMT
#14
On August 13 2009 16:39 oBlade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2009 14:28 micronesia wrote:
When the solar system was forming (due to the process of condensation of nebular gasses), the matter close to the sun had trouble condensing due to the extreme heat. Only rocky and metallic substances were able to form. Further from the sun, lighter materials could form. There was actually much more light material than rocky or metallic material, so gas giants prevailed further away.

The inner planets, mercury, venus, earth, and mars are all called the terrestrial planets.

The outer planets, jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune are called the jovian planets, and are not rocky or metallic.

Therefore, you won't find many rocky planets far from the sun....


Sorry, but I have to call you out on some things.

The rockiness of worlds like Earth, Venus, and Mars is caused by the presence of heavy elements. By heavy, I mean those with an atomic mass greater than Carbon, all the way up to Uranium. These elements are the result of fusion inside massive stars (and ultimately the nucleosynthesis of supernovae), and they predate our solar system, just like hydrogen and helium.

The reason heavy gas giants are further away from the Sun is because of a phenomenon called the Roche limit which dictates how close a satellite can orbit another body while staying together.

The reason terrestrial planets are closer to the Earth does not exist. Sorry, but there are other bodies in our solar system that are made up of heavy elements, and in fact there are even heavy elements in the Jovian worlds (as well as asteroids, Plutoids, Kuiper Belt objects, Oort Cloud objects, moons of the Jovian worlds, and so on; we actually are just beginning to be able to see some of this rocky nonsense because of how cold and tiny much of it is, as well as because of how far away it is, but my ultimate point is the heavy elements are present throughout the solar system).

I'm happy to learn more about this topic, but the information I gave, while not 100% the story, was taken directly from a course I'm taking through the natural history museum right now. Where are you getting some of this information from?

Also I have a question... later on in your post you pointed out that their are 'hot' gas giants. Don't they violate what you said about the Roche limit?

Finally..... I don't see how what you said about heavy elements violates my original explanation.
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
Luddite
Profile Blog Joined April 2007
United States2315 Posts
August 13 2009 16:21 GMT
#15
On August 13 2009 16:39 oBlade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2009 14:28 micronesia wrote:
When the solar system was forming (due to the process of condensation of nebular gasses), the matter close to the sun had trouble condensing due to the extreme heat. Only rocky and metallic substances were able to form. Further from the sun, lighter materials could form. There was actually much more light material than rocky or metallic material, so gas giants prevailed further away.

The inner planets, mercury, venus, earth, and mars are all called the terrestrial planets.

The outer planets, jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune are called the jovian planets, and are not rocky or metallic.

Therefore, you won't find many rocky planets far from the sun....


Sorry, but I have to call you out on some things.

The rockiness of worlds like Earth, Venus, and Mars is caused by the presence of heavy elements. By heavy, I mean those with an atomic mass greater than Carbon, all the way up to Uranium. These elements are the result of fusion inside massive stars (and ultimately the nucleosynthesis of supernovae), and they predate our solar system, just like hydrogen and helium.

I think you're misreading what he said. Yes, the heavier elements were there the whole time, it's just that only the heavier elements could form into planets close to the sun. Farther away, anthing could form a planet, and since there's a lot more of the light elements than there are heavy elements, you're a lot more likely to end up with a gas giant than a far-away-Earth. I don't think there's any reason it would be IMPOSSIBLE to have an Earth-like planet farther away, it would just be very unlikely (and it would probably get sucked into one of the gas giants, anyway).
Can't believe I'm still here playing this same game
rei
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
United States3594 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-13 19:14:03
August 13 2009 18:58 GMT
#16
micronesia try to consider the facts on what we see here in our solar system, and from these facts try to from a hypothesis on how did our solar system came to what it is today. The theory you described seems to be a rotating intergalactic dust slowly gravitates toward its center (evident of iron 60 suggests that the initial center mass was trigger by nearby super nova), and then as it created enough mass in the center, the rotation of the entire intergalactic nebula speeds up.(conservation of momentum, when a person start spinning with arms stretched, and then retracts his arms, the spinning speed will increase) Each planets are from during this process, as the dusts gravitates toward the center, some might bunch up before they get to the center.(the sun)

So now you might ask how do this model explain the differentiation of planet size and composition? Because this model seems to suggest all planets initially formed in the same condition and materials.

Maybe the planets initially all have the same composition, and there was no differentiation between distance to the sun and their size.( there could be a huge ass planet right next to the sun) however, because of the Roche limit after the sun had gathered up majority of the nebula's mass, the huge ass planets inside the Roche limits breaks apart and gets suck into the sun or rotate as more desk of dust for further planet formation material.

Ok that seems to explain the planet size differentiation, the model is logical so far. Now you might ask, but you still didn't explain the difference in composition between the inner and outer planets.
Well let's suppose initially we do have the same composition, and since we have already established the differentiation in size, we can infer that the less size of a planet creates less gravity, and with less gravity the light elements are a lot easier to escape from the planet's orbit, all it would take is from some external force to heat it up a little. Because heat is just energy, When anything encounters "heat" the molecules are more active, and move a little faster, with enough heat, maybe it's faster enough to escape all the small sized planets.
Now you might ask what evidence do you have? well, look what kind of light elements do the outer planets are compose of, and what kind of heavy elements do the inner planet composed of. Would the gravity of the inner planets capable to hold all these light elements of the outer planet let's say if a solar flair happened to make a drive by flairing directed at one of the inner planets?( which provides the energy for the light elements to achieve escape velocity )

So you want answers?

you might say I want the truth!!
Now you be thinking, oh shit, this model explains everything, from the origin of formation to what we see today, everything fits nicely in place, we have all the evidences to support this, this has to be nothing but the truth.

You can't HANDLE the truth!!!!!

This model has a fundamental fault, in which breaks everything down! This fault is conservation of momentum. According to this model the sun should be spinning ridiculously fast!!!!! because it has gathered what 99% of the nebula's mass? But no the TRUTH is our sun right now does not even spin remotely close to what this model suggested. So like every argument, all it takes to invalidates an argument is to prove one of its promise to be false, this is the model's weakest link, WE GOT NO conservation of momentum.

So right about now you must be furious, because reading all these walls of text thinking this is an interesting read and thinking you might learn the truth. but it turned out to be a big waste of time, because the guy wrote it spoiled a good logically deducted story with the mother fucking evidences. Now you might be thinking to yourself, shit I will just ignore this one piece of contradicting evidence and still call this model a success!! Because I can't HANDLE the truth!!

Well the truth is in science one evidence is enough to disprove 50 years worth of work by thousands of people. That's what it means to handle the truth, admit failure to evidence.

or just maybe some people will use this as an example of "ha human can't possibly comprehend Budda's zen"

Oh fuck off religious nut jars.

PS. the rant about religious nut jars are not directed at any one who are not offended by it, but it aims to piss off people who took offense by it.
GET OUT OF MY BASE CHILL
crate
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States2474 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-08-14 02:58:50
August 14 2009 02:51 GMT
#17
The hot Jupiters most likely migrated inward after forming farther out from their parent stars. Some of the largest and closest simply could not have formed where they are located if current theories of planetary formation are correct.

As far as I know planetary formation is still a relatively little-understood topic.

edit, @OP: Some simulations show that rocky planets can survive through the migration of such a gas giant planet. Having a giant planet so close to its parent star most likely does not preclude the existence of Earth-like planets farther outward. There are definitely gravitationally stable orbits in the habitable zone around some stars with a hot Jupiter.

Here are some articles I've read about planetary migration and the possible survival of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of systems with migratory gas giants (this is the citation list for a paper I wrote for my Astro course last semester, lol):

Armitage, P. 2003, ApJ. 582, L47.
Fogg, M. J., & Nelson, R. P. 2005, A&A 441, 791.
Gehman, C. S., Adams, F. C., & Laughlin, G. 1996, PASP, 108, 1018.
Gomes, R., Levison, H. F., Tsiganis, K., & Morbidelli, A., 2005, Nature, 435, 466.
Lin, D. N. C., & Papaloizou, J. C. B. 1986, ApJ, 309, 846.
Mandell, A. M., & Sigurdsson, S. 2003 ApJ, 599, L111.
Masset, F. S., & Papaloizou, J. C. B. 2003 ApJ, 588, 494.
Matsumura, S. Pudritz, R. E., & Thommes, E. 2007, ApJ, 660, 1609.
Menou, K., & Tabachnik, S. 2003, ApJ, 583, 473.
Nelson R. P., Papaloizou J. C. B., Masset F. & Kley W. 2000 Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 318 18.
Papaloizou, J. C. B., & Terquem, C. 2006, Rep. Prog. Phys., 69, 119
Trilling, D. E., Benz,W., Guillot, T., Lunine, J. I., Hubbard,W. B.,& Burrows, A. 1998, ApJ, 500, 428.

You should be able to find those on ADSABS. http://adswww.harvard.edu/
We did. You did. Yes we can. No. || http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/crate.html || twitch.tv/crate3333
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