The one-eyed Mick
Aug. 5th, 2004 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
afufleI once saw a t-shirt ad in Rolling Stone magazine that had a really well-done version of the 40s Mickey Mouse with only one eye in the center of the face. I kept remembering the ad, but did not having enought money to splurge at the time. I did after a while, and figured the ad would be featured at least several times, but I had to go back to the issue I saw it in. After a while I learned that Disney pounces on this type of thing, to keep its trademark of Mickey. Too bad.
I kept the ad, enlarged the image and made a rubberstamp out of it. It's in my stuff at my mom's house, though I don't have a scanner anyway, but I wish I could post a pic/make an icon, whatever.
Er, what is wrong with my stomach today? Too much coffee, I have a feeling.
________________________________
Solar System May Be Unique After All -- Astronomers
Wed Aug 4, 5:10 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Our solar system may be unique after all, despite the discovery of at least 120 other systems with planets, astronomers said on Wednesday.
All the other solar systems that have been found have big, gassy planets circling too close to their stars to allow them to be anything like Earth or its fellow planets, the British and U.S.-based researchers said.
If that is the case, Earth-like planets will be very rare, the astronomers write in the latest issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Maybe these other extrasolar systems ... contain only the giant planets," said Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Livio and colleagues took a close look at what is known about the other planetary systems that have been discovered.
"In (our) solar system the orbits are very circu lar. Most of the giant planets observed in extrasolar systems have very elliptical orbits," Livio said in a telephone interview.
This could mean that astronomers have been wrong in assuming that all planets formed in basically the same way.
Livio said most experts thought that planets formed out of dust. "This dust coagulates and forms small rocks and the rocks combine and form small bodies and then those bodies form things like Earths," he said.
"The Earths collect and accrete gas and then they form giant planets like Jupiter. That is one model."
But so far no one has found a planet outside our solar system that looks like it formed that way.
"Then there is a second model that has been suggested specifically for the formation of giant planets like Jupiter. You start with a gas disk and this disk becomes unstable and it breaks up into large clumps and those clumps are the things that form giant planets," Livio said.
"In that model it is not obvious at all how planets like Earth may have formed."
It could be our solar system formed in the first way and most of the others formed in the second way, Livio said.
But he said it is hard to tell as planets outside this solar system can only be detected through indirect observation and these methods are not able to detect smaller planets like Earth.
Either way, it is time to start thinking about the possibility that our system is unique or at least unusual, Livio said.
What has been seen up to now does not bode well for the main purpose of seeking other planets -- finding life outside our solar system.
"If the orbit is very elliptical then the planet may come very close to its sun at some point and that doesn't appear to be very healthy for life," Livio said.
I think that's from Yahoo news or Yahoo science news.
I kept the ad, enlarged the image and made a rubberstamp out of it. It's in my stuff at my mom's house, though I don't have a scanner anyway, but I wish I could post a pic/make an icon, whatever.
Er, what is wrong with my stomach today? Too much coffee, I have a feeling.
________________________________
Solar System May Be Unique After All -- Astronomers
Wed Aug 4, 5:10 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Our solar system may be unique after all, despite the discovery of at least 120 other systems with planets, astronomers said on Wednesday.
All the other solar systems that have been found have big, gassy planets circling too close to their stars to allow them to be anything like Earth or its fellow planets, the British and U.S.-based researchers said.
If that is the case, Earth-like planets will be very rare, the astronomers write in the latest issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Maybe these other extrasolar systems ... contain only the giant planets," said Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Livio and colleagues took a close look at what is known about the other planetary systems that have been discovered.
"In (our) solar system the orbits are very circu lar. Most of the giant planets observed in extrasolar systems have very elliptical orbits," Livio said in a telephone interview.
This could mean that astronomers have been wrong in assuming that all planets formed in basically the same way.
Livio said most experts thought that planets formed out of dust. "This dust coagulates and forms small rocks and the rocks combine and form small bodies and then those bodies form things like Earths," he said.
"The Earths collect and accrete gas and then they form giant planets like Jupiter. That is one model."
But so far no one has found a planet outside our solar system that looks like it formed that way.
"Then there is a second model that has been suggested specifically for the formation of giant planets like Jupiter. You start with a gas disk and this disk becomes unstable and it breaks up into large clumps and those clumps are the things that form giant planets," Livio said.
"In that model it is not obvious at all how planets like Earth may have formed."
It could be our solar system formed in the first way and most of the others formed in the second way, Livio said.
But he said it is hard to tell as planets outside this solar system can only be detected through indirect observation and these methods are not able to detect smaller planets like Earth.
Either way, it is time to start thinking about the possibility that our system is unique or at least unusual, Livio said.
What has been seen up to now does not bode well for the main purpose of seeking other planets -- finding life outside our solar system.
"If the orbit is very elliptical then the planet may come very close to its sun at some point and that doesn't appear to be very healthy for life," Livio said.
I think that's from Yahoo news or Yahoo science news.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2004-08-05 06:22 pm (UTC)Re: ???
Date: 2004-08-06 09:01 am (UTC)On my way home yesterday, I was actually thinking "I used to think we were just a set of planets around a sun like countless infinities of others, but now I'm getting this idea that we're really special and rare. So impossibly different."
It was like I used to feel as a kid sometimes, that the universe is a wonderment, not at all like we'd categorized everything and it's just boring.
What made us different? Wow. Is there a Creator with a personality ( I think so ). But jeez, just when I had been so jaded about it all.
I'm hoping there will be some followup soon, but at least I hope in my lifetime.