Exoplanets and other cool stuff in the universe

[Christianbookworm]

I would like to discuss exoplanets from a theistic perspective(meaning that I don't want a debate on if or how or when God created the universe, that doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread) and ponder on what else is waiting for us to discover. The universe is an awesome place. What is the most interesting fact you have come across? From a theistic perspective, what would be the reason for exoplanets? I don't know why people try to make a dichotomy between God and science. The more I learn about the world/universe, the more God is glorified by the sheer awesomeness of the universe. From the tiniest subatomic particles to the vastness of super galactic clusters, I am amazed by the wonders of the universe. So, we can talk about any cool thing in the universe! No debates please. Other than maybe arguing about which exoplanet is the coolest.

[rogue06]

[Adrift]

Though there may be some, I don't think there's any particular reason for exoplanets outside of God's desire to demonstrate his majesty so that we are without excuse in believing in him. Perhaps it's also just the natural byproduct of creating a universe from nothing in the creation of free will beings with intent to worship. It's not like it's a waste of space, time, energy, material or anything else for a limitless, omniscient eternal being.

[Christianbookworm]

Of course not! And it's really fun to find out new things.

[Christianbookworm]

Any weird new exoplants discovered?

[TheLurch]

Any weird new exoplants discovered?

Just this week! Well, the discovery was earlier, the announcement of it and paper describing it was this week. All indications are that it's the core of a former gas giant that wandered too close to its star and had the atmosphere driven off.

Paper's here, but i haven't found a press report i was entirely in love with.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2421-7

[Christianbookworm]

What about the one with glass shard storms?

[shunyadragon]

I already have thread posted for a while reporting new finds of exoplanets here: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...s-world!/page5


Another goldilocks planet found closer an earth like than ever before. . . but there is a problem. There are likely many earth-like planets everywhere, but at what stage are they in their development of their solar system. It depends on how mature the sun is. In our solar system both Venus and Mars were potentially living earth-like planets but no more. Earth-like planets have a life span as the sun matures, and eventually earth will no longer be an earth-like planet.

Source: https://scitechdaily.com/mirror-image-of-the-earth-and-sun-discovered-3000-light-years-away/

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[shunyadragon]

This is an update of planets around a nearby star. I believe it was previously determined that there was a earth-like planet around a red dwarf, but now it was determined that there are large two earth-like planets.

Source: https://scitechdaily.com/international-reddots-team-has-detected-a-system-of-super-earth-planets-orbiting-nearby-red-dwarf-star/

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[T-Shirt Ninja]

From a theistic perspective, what would be the reason for exoplanets?

I think a God would be motivated by creativity. There's so much detail in our universe that, if it's created, would indicate a lot of thought being put into how things work.

I don't know why people try to make a dichotomy between God and science.

I think it has to do something with how our brains are wired. There's a good Ted talk about it.

[shunyadragon]

From a theistic perspective, what would be the reason for exoplanets?

I don believe God deals with 'reasons' concerning the nature of our physical existence. Simply in Creation our physical existence reflects the attributes of God, and not our theistic perspective.

I don't know why people try to make a dichotomy between God and science.

People see dichotomies between science and God, because their point of reference is ancient scripture that reflects the world view of the authors at the time they were written and not science.

The beginnings of the contemporary science of our universe that described a universe of many solar systems and planets did exist 2000+ years ago in the writings of Lucretius in the 2nd century that reflects the view of some Greek philosophers..

[shunyadragon]

Just this week! Well, the discovery was earlier, the announcement of it and paper describing it was this week. All indications are that it's the core of a former gas giant that wandered too close to its star and had the atmosphere driven off.

Paper's here, but i haven't found a press report i was entirely in love with.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2421-7

Thanks for the reference!

The following is an interesting layman's version: https://www.sciencealert.com/this-we...dead-gas-giant

[shunyadragon]

Source: https://www.space.com/multiplanet-system-sun-like-star-first-photo.html

Multiplanet system around sunlike star photographed for 1st time ever

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Neat illustrations.

[shunyadragon]

Many with possibly life earth-like planets discovered

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/25-years-since-found-first-060015649.html

It's Been 25 Years Since We Found the First Exoplanet. Now We Know of Thousands—and Some Could Harbor Life

Jeffrey Kluger
,


,
Time•October 6, 2020Exoplanets
An artist's rendition of 51 Pegasi b. Credit - NASABy the most recent tally, there are 4,354 known exoplanets, including 712 multi-planet systems, for a total of 3,218 solar systems beyond our own. Virtually every one of the hundreds of trillions of stars in the universe is now believed to harbor at least one world—and many are home to whole litters. The Earth, which once sat at the center of humanity’s map of the cosmos, is now known to be an impossibly tiny part of an impossibly vast planetary census.

Astronomers didn’t spot 55 Pegasi b directly—it’s no more possible to visualize a planet in the glare of its parent star from a distance of 50 light years than it is to see a moth fluttering near a streetlight from half a dozen blocks away. Instead, the investigators used the radial velocity method, which involves looking at the slight gravitational wobble a planet causes in its star as it makes its orbit. It’s a nifty method for discovering planets, but it’s slow, as only one star can be observed at a time.

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[shunyadragon]

Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-habitable-zone-earth-sized-planet-exoplanet-survey.html

The first habitable-zone, Earth-sized planet discovered with exoplanet survey spacecraft


by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
A schematic of the planets around the nearby M dwarf star TOI-700, discovered by TESS. The third (the farthest planet from the star), TOI-700d, lies within the star's habitable zone (shown in green). Using the IRAC camera on Spitzer, the team refined the planet's mass as 2.1 Earth-masses and 1.14 Earth-radii. (The scale shows 0.2 astronomical units; AU being the average Earth-Sun distance.) Credit: Rodriguez et al 2020
TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched in 2018 with the goal of discovering small planets around the Sun's nearest neighbors, stars bright enough to allow for follow-up characterizations of their planets' masses and atmospheres. TESS has so far discovered seventeen small planets around eleven nearby stars that are M dwarfs—stars that are smaller than the Sun (less than about 60% of the Sun's mass) and cooler (surface temperatures less than about 3900 kelvin). In a series of three papers that appeared together this month, astronomers report that one of these planets, TOI-700d, is Earth-sized and also located in its star's habitable zone; they also discuss its possible climate.

Center for Astrophysics astronomers Joseph Rodriguez, Laura Kreidberg, Karen Collins, Samuel Quinn, Dave Latham, Ryan Cloutier, Jennifer Winters, Jason Eastman, and David Charbonneau were on the teams that studied TOI-700d, one of three small planets orbiting one M dwarf star (its mass is 0.415 solar masses) located one hundred and two light-years from Earth. The TESS data analysis found the tentative sizes of the planets as being approximately Earth-sized, 1.04, 2.65 and 1.14 Earth-radii, respectively, and their orbital periods as 9.98, 16.05, and 37.42 days, respectively. In our solar system, Mercury orbits the Sun in about 88 days; it is so close to the Sun that its temperature can reach over 400 Celsius. But because this M-dwarf star is comparatively cool the orbit of its third planet, even though much closer to the star than Mercury is to the Sun, places it in the habitable zone – the region within which the temperatures allow surface water (if any) to remain liquid when there is also an atmosphere. That makes this Earth-sized planet TOI-700d particularly interesting as a potential host for life.

The TESS detections were exciting but uncertain: the signals were faint and a small possibility remained that the TOI-700d detection was spurious. Because of the potential importance of finding a nearby Earth-sized planet in a habitable zone, the TESS scientists turned to the IRAC camera on the Spitzer Space Observatory for confirmation. Before being turned off by NASA in February 2020, the IRAC camera was by far the most sensitive near infrared camera in space. The TESS team observed TOI-700 with IRAC in October of 2019 and January of 2020, acquiring clear detections of the planets with about twice the signal-to-noise of TESS, enough to give a 61% improvement in the planet's orbit and to significantly refine our knowledge of its other characteristics, refining the radius as above and finding the mass to be 2.1 Earth-masses. The results, especially when compared with other planets' properties, suggest that this planet may be rocky and likely to be "tidally locked" with one side of the planet always facing the star.

If there were liquid water on the surface of TOI-700d, the astronomers argue, there would also be water-bearing clouds in the atmosphere, and the team uses climate system models to estimate its possible properties and what more sensitive measurements might find. They conclude, however, that pending space missions, including JWST, will probably lack the sensitivity to detect atmospheric features by a factor of ten or more. Their detailed climate studies will nevertheless help astronomers constrain the kinds of telescopes and instruments that will be needed to investigate this exciting new neighbor.

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