Its not nonsense or trolling and you just falsely accusing me (I used to comment as StevoR for those who don’t already know) of that doesn’t make it true.

The IAU definition is illogical and dumb for a number of good reasons incl. violating Occam’s Razor by adding a needless and hard to define extra condition simply to exclude the ice dwarfs from planetary classification.

Blazes, the IAU definition even ignores exoplanets as well as Pluto restricting planets by definition to our Solar system.

Yes, MaDeR, I will continue to point out the idiocy – as Alan Stern correctly described it – of the IAU’s rubbish definition of planet whenever its appropriate.

How anyone can defend the IAU’s illogical, unsatisfactory and, I think we’ll find, temporary aberration of a definition is beyond me. Perhaps, MaDeR, instead of throwing insults about you might want to actually consider my and other peoples arguments on this and then rethink your position on this topic?

Funny to see same old “arguments” and misconceptions repeated over and over, ignoring answers and counterarguments, and debunking (for example this damn “clearing orbit”, will this beating of a strawman ever end?).

This is exactly same standards as, say, creationists. Nice to be among people with similiar mindset, eh StevoR?

All? Probably not. Likely? That is being looked at now. The main issue is we don’t have a handle on how our own solar system formed. Its therefore hard to gauge how typical our system is. So right now our understanding is based on the systems we find these exoplanets around and computer simulations. While I’m a big fan of them, you have to watch out for simulations because their assumptions can cause certain outcomes to be more likely. For instance, at the time the Fomalhaut planet was found, simulations showed that A type stars are likely to form ice giants like Uranus and Neptune. Only time will tell how accurate that is. The more we learn about our own system, the better we will be at predicting.

And in the mean time we might soon discover earth-like worlds as well.

I wonder if knowing what we still do not know about physics will allow us to see loopholes to reach those worlds.

But maybe its to soon, I wouldn’t want humans in their current state unleashed upon other planets. Humans are to greedy, irresponsible and destructive. Look at what the overpopulating humans did to their own poor homeworld!

So if there is a possibility to travel to other stars, then I hope humans don’t discover it if/until they become a more responsible species.

How I wish we could just EDIT or even preview these posts – for the umpeteenth time .. Sigh

Exoplanet tally -wise :

Fomalhaut b, Beta Pictoris b, HR 8799 (Or shall we call it “Harry”?) b & c & d are all confirmed imaged exoplanets I understand so that’s five certyain ones right?

Or, wait a minute, is Beta Pic b not so certain? Leaving four planets in two exoplanetary systems.

We’ve also got 2 M 1207 b (the brown dwarf one from 2004 – shall we call it “Twelver”? ) which seems pretty definitely imaged and an exoplanet with very small uncertainties. Safe enough to add to that list? So five planets in three systems then? (HR 8799 – 3, Fomalhaut-1, 2M1207 -1)

Or shall we also count the likely planet of that K7 orange drwaf 1 RSX J numerals (Oh call it ‘Rissex’ or something for pity’s sake please!) making six planets, four systems ..

Or do we go the whole hog and add in GQ Lupi (“GiQueLupis? Giquelupe?”) and Ab Pictoris (“Abpict”? Or just “Fred”? ) too even though they may well be brown dwarfs and NOT planets which would make a grand total of eight planets in six exoplanetary systems ..?

Exciting times and fantastic work by the teams involved however we count them and certainly we’re doing better in this area than I expected to see in my lifetime already!

Cloan : thanks -glad to see I’m not alone in this regard.

Could we hear the ‘Fomalhaut b’ song somehere, please? Sounds interetsing. Ifanyone wants to use my little piece of doggrel (ie. that “Finding of Fomalhaut b” poem posted above on here) for anything btw. feel free to do so also.

Torbjorn Larsson OM wrote :

“But if you are dead set to make the analogy [& yes I sure am! - Ed!] surely Fomalhaut b is an exoplanet ‘planet’ that has cleared its orbit, as it AFAIU is responsible for the cutoff of the visible debris disk? And it’s iffy to understand the significance of the parts in the Beta Pictoris image consisting of superposed and processed parts, but it sure looks to me like Beta Pictoris ‘b’ may be another one.”

Yes but is its orbit actually cleared? What the blazes does “cleared” actually mean anyhow? I mean technically, as I’ve noted before comets and asteroids cross all our planets paths – does that make them not clear and not planets? Can there ever even be any such thing as a “planet” under the stupidity of that IAU “orbital clearance” rule – which was deliberately imposed for the sole purpose of kicking out Pluto? Its just such a nonsense -and it doesn’t even apply to exoplanets showing just how inadequate and silly the IAU definition is.

(So what exactly does the IAU call these new found worlds I wonder? Dwarf planets? Clasical planets? Stark inconvenient facts that destroy the IAu’s decrees maybe? )

I honestly think the IAU are doing themselves and astronomers worldwide a real disservice and making themselves and us all appear very foolish.

I also really think the wider astronomical community needs to get them to reverse their anti-Pluto definition and replace it with something more reasonable – sooner rather than later.

Can we astronomers cast a vote of no-confidence in the IAU leadership and replace them or something? Anyone know?

What you are asking is the ultimate winner of the exoplanet search. So far, the methods can’t determine earth like planets because they don’t perturb the system enough. We do need better telescopes, but they are on the way as we speak. More than any other, I’m placing my bets on the Kepler space telescope, that right now is in the final stages before launch next March. The telescope has gone through vacuum testing to make sure all the systems will work in space. The rocket itself is being prepared in Florida.

Kepler’s main mission is to find exoplanets, especially earth-like ones, but others are working on it so I’m assuming once we hear one and the technique is refined, we’ll see them pop all over the place. Already, people are determining how to detect moons around these exoplanets using the wobble technique. Just as cool, scientists are trying to figure out what Earth would look like to an alien telescope to try to find the same type of signals in other planets. The next few years should be great.

Phil: If the Jovian system is any indication, how likely is it that we’ll find moon-sized or even planet-sized satellites of Super-Jupiters like “b” (I swear to god I’ll name it myself if you geniuses don’t get poetic REAL soon! Mozart wrote “twinkle twinkle” at age 11. Maybe you astronomers prefer to defer to a self-important standards commitee (“I have NO time to discuss it as a committee!”…”I AM NOT A COMMITTEE!!!!”) who plays headgames with Pluto, but we poets and musicians have a LONG tradition of hanging names on faraway objects that we can only touch in a song… NOT a threat, just a promise…)
If these other star systems have the same sort of debris torus that Fomalhaut clearly shows, then what are the odds we might even find an ocean moon brimming with life orbiting one of these amazing new worlds? I’d be willing to bet a month’s income on Europa myself, for starters…
“Twinkle, twinkle…”

the next big step will be to get spectra of these objects.

Coincidentally, I just saw the announcement of the first detection of carbon dioxide on an exoplanet:

The fact that the carbon dioxide compounds were identified in relatively low-resolution spectra, comments theorist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., “represents the proof-of-concept for what we would hope to look for when characterizing the atmospheres of extrasolar Earths with a Terrestrial Planet Finder-type space telescope.”

The new finding “means that three of the Big Four biomarkers for habitable/inhabited worlds have now been seen: water, methane and now carbon dioxide,” Boss says. “The only one that has not yet been detected is oxygen/ozone.”

@ Alan:

If this pans out, it will be the fourth planet directly imaged around a sun-like star.

It’s not a planet says the IAU!

GumbyTheCat has mentioned that we may have 6 candidates around sunlike stars. Now, as I remember it, IAU’s definition isn’t supposed to cover exoplanets. But if you are dead set to make the analogy surely Fomalhaut b is an exoplanet ‘planet’ that has cleared its orbit, as it AFAIU is responsible for the cutoff of the visible debris disk?

And it’s iffy to understand the significance of the parts in the Beta Pictoris image consisting of superposed and processed parts, but it sure looks to me like Beta Pictoris ‘b’ may be another one.

I mean HR 8799 is prounounced how? Aitch Arr eight thousand seven hundredand ninety-nine? Eight-seven-nine-nine? Eighty Seven, ninety-nine? Or what? You really think people are going to say One R ecks Ess J numerals, etc.. etc .. ad nauseam … ??

Lets set a limit of no more than three numerals – four at very most – in any significant star name and start giving historic or significant star discoveries proper memorable reasonable names eg. ‘Osiris’ for 209458 b, Antihelios for PSR B 1257+12, ‘Bellopheron’ for 51 Peg b etc ..

Maybe scientist are okay with strings of numerals or celestial co-ordinates substituting for real names but most ordinary folks aren’t and it makes things harder to communicate and relate to for the general public. Which hurts astronomy in the end. If tiny moonlets of Saturn and Jupiter can carry proper names then I see no reason why superjovian planets around distant stars need to be deprived of them. Ok not every exoplanet (& host star) needs “real” naming – but the key one’s I think do.

Also do these distant Jovian gas giant / Superjovian boarderline brown dwarfs orbiting 100′s of AU from their stars raise the prospects of a distant Jupiter or even SuperJupiter in our own solar system perhaps playing the suggested comet-disturbing Nemesis role?

Of course, if a Jupiter or superJupiter type world is discovered in our Edgeworth-Kuiper disk or Oort cloud region then technically the IAU will be forced to deem it a “dwarf planet” .. as technically applies to Beta Pic b, Fomalhaut b and the exoplanets of HR 8799. Illustrating yet again just how absurd and stupid their anti-Pluto “orbital clearance” criterion really is.

You’re probably thinking of ‘Osiris’ or HD 209458 b :

In 1999 this became the first Hot Jupiter found by the transiting technique – detecting a transit of the planet like transits of Mercury & Venus in own solar system and the first to have atmosphere detected – a huge cloud of hydrogen and sodium was found to be “boiling” off this exoplanets surface. This led to its nickname by astronomers of “Osiris” after a dismembered Egyptian God. HD 209458 b is located in Pegasus 150 light years away and circles its star every 3.5 days.

Or perhaps HD 183733 b :

The first exoplanet where water has been detected – albeit only superheated water vapour in the atmosphere of a HotJupiter! Around August 2007 a team of astronomers led by Giovanni Tinetti used the Spitzer infra-red telescope to study this exoplanet located 64 light years away and found it’s atmosphere was absorbing starlight at key wavelengths indicating water vapour was present. HD 189733 b is a transiting HotJupiter practically scraping the surface of its star as its “year” is a mere 2.2 days! Hints of water were earlier suggested bit less strongly from previous studies of HD 209458 b or “Osiris.” HD 189733 b was also roughly mapped and found to have a massive hotspot on its surface twice the size of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot lying 30 degrees from the sub-stellar point directly facing its sun and baking at a sweltering 925 degrees Celsius. This suggests powerful winds redistribute the heat through the cloudtops and this is backed up with the high temperatures on this exoplanets night side of 650 degrees Celsius – a day-night difference of 260 degrees.

Or even HD 20945 b another Hot Jupiter found to be evapourating away like a comet as noted on the space.com article “How to Destroy a Giant Planet” by Robert Roy Britt – click on my name for a link to that source. (Hopefully it’ll even work! )

Essentially any Jovian or Superjovian world within 0.15 AU or 24 million km of its star becoems unstable and starts to boil and fume its atmosphere away. All Hot Jupiters may be doomed!

___The Find around Beta Pic See_
By Steven C. Raine, Nov. 2008

Look there in “the warped disk” & you’ll see
A dot size of Jupiter, gee!
There’s a planet within
A speck causing grins
Coz that’s the world Beta Pic b!

Astronomers searched everywhere
For year after year after year
IRAS found disks
but now we’ve found ground
Well deep under clouds now yippee!

Its follows on Fomalhaut b
Jove’s mass but past Neptune’s dist see
But the orbits not clear
So sob in your beer
Its gone just like Pluto oh dear!

But never mind mess around globes
Or that they turn up in their droves
A planets a planet y’know
So Pluto can stay and not go!

Yes Pluto, Beta Pic & Fomalhaut b
And round HR 8799 three
We’re finding new worlds
Enough for all boys and girls
And we celebrate all with great glee!

(Yes this has been updated. Hope y’all enjoy it.)

Actually by my count we have noless than SEVEN (of 9? ) exoplanets or cnadidate exoplanets imaged so far :

1. Fomalhaut b 2008 Nov Nearby bright star

2. Beta Pictoris b 2008 Nov. Nearby brightish star

3. HR 8799 b,c & d Nov.2008 Distant Procyonese (?)(1.5 mass Solar) star with protoplanetary disk containg planets at 25,40 & 70 AU.

4. 1 RSX J160929.1-210524 K7 orange dwarf Sept 15th 8x Mass Jove 11 x Neptune’s distance (or 330 AU?)

(NB.Click on my name for a link to this earlier BA thread complete with a link added back tothe Fomalhaut b & HR 8799 one there.)

5.2M 1207b or in full 2 MASSW J1207334-393254 imaged April 27th 2004 around a brown dwarf, a 5 Jupiter-mass exoplanet or perhaps brown dwarf this planet orbits 55 AU from its brown dwarf sun.

6.GQ Lupi b 2004ish (?) Probable brown dwarf 1-42 mJ @100 AU

7. AB Pictoris b 2003 March (earliest but probable brown dwarf) 250 AU out.

Now okay several of them may end up being classified as brown dwrafs and those in protoplanetary disks suffer from perhaps being technically ineligable by the idiocy of the IAU’s anti-Pluto “clearance” balony* criterion but still ..

Its all very awesome, impressive & amazing news ewsp. the recentstring of discoveries and images. :-)

Well it is to me at least, I love hearing about exoplanets and frankly I don’t know why more isn’t made of such discoveries of entirely new planets around other stars by the media and wider community.

Thanks BA for keeping us updated. Great posts for great findings!

—–

* If you ask me the IAU can go jump in the lake here – a planet’s a planet wherever it is – whether it orbits in a protoplanetary disk or our own Edgeworth-Kuiper disk or Oort cloud. I hope the IAU soon correct this mistake restore Pluto,Eris and other dwrafs to full planetary status and stop being such a laughing stock and disgrace to astronomers everywhere.

Can optic induced photons with neutrinos, tacheyons, quarks, leptons (sub-atomic particles) and muons shot form a particles accelerate onto, on top and along, the light or photons streaming from the Big Bang, for and to help its (the optical induced photons) speed, location and distance (search) to other solar systems and galaxies for a close look (pictures) using the photo induced optics?

Sincerely,

Jason Pacifico

When will we be able to see a true color, within the range of human eyesight, photo of an exoplanet?

Will it ever happen?

:golfclap: