Comments on: Astronomers discover a wretched hive of scum and villainy

By: One planet, two stars | Warston

One planet, two stars | Warston — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:14:52 +0000

[...] Read more. Show your love:No related posts… yet. Categories: Bits Tags: Misc., orbit, planet, star wars, stars, suns [...]

By: misc-ience - science-related ramblings and whimsy

misc-ience - science-related ramblings and whimsy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:33:48 +0000

[...] Astronomers discover a wretched hive of scum and villainy [...]

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:51:36 +0000

I’m confused. It seems like these planets never get names that end with “a”, so I presumed that the “a” was for the star. but there are two stars here, so should the planet be Kepler-16c?

Hoth? They should call it Coldh.

By: Monday Extras! «

Monday Extras! « — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:12:07 +0000

[...] First, we hope you already heard about the planet that the Kepler space telescope found orbiting a binary star system. The paper in Science is here; feel free to check out the version written in English over at Bad Astronomy. [...]

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:22:31 +0000

AK (43) said:

is there any possibility that life can exist the way we DONT know…..maybe its not carbon based like ours….does anyone think this if it is the case or even if it is possible…?would love to hear the views of good people on this blog….

The difficulty with life as we don’t know it is exactly that – we don’t know anything about it.

How would we go about recognising life as we don’t know it?

It’s hard enough agreeing on a set of criteria by which we would detect life as we do know it, but we seem to be getting close. Liquid water seems to be a key criterion. On Earth, wherever there is liquid water and some means of obtaining energy from the environment, we find life. But if there are forms of life out there that use supercritical CO2, or liquid ammonia, or whatever, as a solvent for their chemistry, we don’t know anything about it and we have very little chance of finding out in the near future.

By: 10 Things We Learned This Weekend: The Big 12 and Big East are in trouble, Verlander is MVP, and George Lucas was right!

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:16:06 +0000

[...] credit for introducing moviegoers to the idea that a planet could orbit two stars. Late last week astronomers announced the discovery of a planet that, like Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, has two suns. Kepler-16b is a [...]

By: Shatners Basoon

Shatners Basoon — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:45:03 +0000

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/planet-with-double-sunset-is-full-of-bad-dialogue-201109164316/

By: We Could Move to Tatooine | Gathering Moss while Wandering

We Could Move to Tatooine | Gathering Moss while Wandering — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 19:09:34 +0000

[...] one already. Star Wars allusions have been rife on the internet over the last few days due to the discovery of a planet that orbits two suns (or sun like stars as the article calls them). This newly discovered planet was discovered while [...]

By: Nibra

Nibra — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:08:13 +0000

You will find whatever you can imagine. At sometime, somewhere, it will be found.

By: Did Quora repost my answer as a comment on Bad Astronomy? - Quora

Did Quora repost my answer as a comment on Bad Astronomy? - Quora — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:30:31 +0000

[...] to read the comments on that post and found an except of my answer posted by somebody named Quora: http://blogs.discovermagazine.co... .Besides answering, the only other actions I took were 1) linking to the article and 2) sharing the [...]

By: flip

flip — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:14:00 +0000

How would a planet end up orbiting both stars? Is it a matter of something being created due to accretion, or would it be a far-flung planet/merger which was captured by their gravity?

@AK #43

I believe the ‘Goldilocks’ zone is about it being too hot or too cold: too close to the sun and you’d fry any lifeforms, too far away and it’d be too cold. I think though, the Goldilocks zone is more about looking in the most *probable* places, where you increase your chances of finding alien life. No point wasting energy looking in the least probable places, especially when your funding/time is limited.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 12:35:12 +0000

There’s a good Youtube clip made by NASA Ames on Kepler 16 b too. Click on my name for link.

By: Quora

Quora — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:45:15 +0000

How should we name new exoplanets?…

We should mostly keep doing what we’re doing now, using the parent star’s name and giving each planet a letter subscript. There’s such a staggering number of planets out there that any self-consistent, human-readable naming scheme would run out of n…

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 08:59:04 +0000

@ ^ lordbubonicus : Thanks for that. Yeah I’m pleased -& also a bit puzzled as to how? I thought Kepler could only detect transisting ones & didn’t realise it was able to detect non-transiting exoplanets too! Neat.

By: lordbubonicus

lordbubonicus — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:35:00 +0000

@20 Messier Tidy Upper

You’ll be pleased to hear that there are ongoing projects to find both transiting and non-transiting circumbinary planets with Kepler. So even if such systems aren’t transiting, there’s a good chance that the Kepler team will find them.

By: Double Sunsets Are Better Than Double Rainbows Tatooine Really Does Exist | HaLaPic

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:13:25 +0000

[...] [hat tip to Discover Mag] [...]

By: NASA announces newly found planet, and new deep-space program » Dateline Zero

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:46:30 +0000

[...] Plait explains more about the Kepler announcement at Discover Magazine blog. Video of the presser is still available for viewing [...]

By: JMW

JMW — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:41:38 +0000

In an email to a friend, I made the point of the planet being closer in conditions to Hoth than Tattooine, and I proposed the name “Hothooine”.

Phil, have you got an ins at the IAU whom you can influence in this direction?

By: AK

AK — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:32:19 +0000

Whenever there is a talk of exoplanets….. it is always said that it is too far or too near to support life as WE Know it…is there any possibility that life can exist the way we DONT know…..maybe its not carbon based like ours….does anyone think this if it is the case or even if it is possible…?would love to hear the views of good people on this blog….

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:57:18 +0000

These are not the stars you are looking for! (hand wave)
Phil: These are not the stars we are looking for.

Go about your business. (hand wave)
Phil: Go about your business

If Phil was a Tyderian, Jedi mind tricks wouldn’t work on him.

By: Double Sunsets Are Better Than Double Rainbows Tatooine Really Does Exist — HaLaMovie

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:55:17 +0000

[...] tip to Discover Mag] Related [...]

By: Isaac

Isaac — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:05:41 +0000

Sion, I think west is defined by a planets rotation. So west is, by definition, where the sun(s) set.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:04:23 +0000

What I’ve been wondering, and which I haven’t seen addressed, is this: is it possible for there to be a stable orbit in the Goldilocks zone around both stars, or is that just too close to be stable? In other words, while Kepler-16b isn’t Tatooine, is it possible that there’s a 16c in there somewhere?

By: Sion

Sion — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:32:13 +0000

How do you know Tatooine’s suns set in the west?

By: Stan9fromouterspace

Stan9fromouterspace — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:05:33 +0000

So, did you write the last sentence first and build the rest of the post above that? Just wondering, that’s probably what I would have done.