 September 15, 2011 - 7:03pm | ...orbiting a binary star: http://news.yahoo.com/planet-star-wars-tatooine-discovered-orbiting-2-suns-181404397.html |
 September 15, 2011 - 8:03pm | Yes but I resent the statement, "Again and again we see that science is stranger and cooler than fiction..." What! Fiction had it right first and scientist said no way. Science has be playing catch up with fiction all along if it was cooler than fiction than they would have had it write long before fiction and not been wrong when they said a Planet would not form in a binary system. That statement is illogical and stupid. I suspect is says something about the person that made it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 15, 2011 - 8:10pm | You have pleased his excellency, the magnificent Jabba, with your tatooine post! My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
 September 15, 2011 - 10:30pm | Time to start detailing the Formad Cluster. -iggy |
 September 16, 2011 - 4:18am | Reading the details more, the only thing it compares to Tatooine is a twin sun... and we already knew planets can exist around binaries, just not form and distance... this supports the possibility of a stable Green-zone planet in a multi-star system. "The new-found planet keeps a distance from its stars nearly three-quarters that of the distance between the Earth and the sun. It is somewhat like Saturn in size, although nearly 50 percent denser, suggesting it is richer in heavy elements... [snip] ...This alien world travels on a nearly circular 229-day orbit around its two parent stars..." This is NOT anything like the small desert planet... Mars is still closer than this. A bit like comparing an orange to a kiwi, and saying the kiwi proves that other kinds of oranges exist. BUT...  VERY KEWL READ !!!! Did inspire some thoughts. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
September 16, 2011 - 5:12am | I have to agree with spiritcoyote there is some ill logic there but the discovery is very cool, maybe even cooler than fiction. :)
Seems that the Tatoonie comparison was more of an effort to grab attention. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 16, 2011 - 6:38am | reality is often stranger than fiction but science isn't. If you go with the basic scientific principle of forming an hypothesis first and than testing it you first create a fiction and than prove it true so all science is just fiction with some facts added. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
September 16, 2011 - 10:41am | the point of the article was to show evidence that binary star systems don't have to exist without planets orbiting them. this is the fist evidence that planets do exist orbiting binaries. -iggy |
September 16, 2011 - 12:43pm | Yeah, we knew it was possible, now we have one to compare the concept to. At a glance from the articles I see nothing that stands out as unusual however, so the basic model isn't being challenged... yet... it will be eventually, I am sure the model of our own system still has some hic-ups... and we have much more observational time with it. The basic theories are intact, it's the details in the math... the three-body problem was already challenged and refined recently, and there are observations of multi-star systems and dancing asteroid ballets, to compare with... apparently there are still some deeper issues in some of the maths, but that's beyond me...for RPG and Fiction work it's all rather simpler math  I found another release: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20106952-239/nasa-spots-first-planet-in-binary-star-system/ Still not impressed with the use of the term "Tatooine" ... if it was at least a terrestrial/silicate or in the liquid-water zone then it would be less offencive... However it is a Saturn-sized mass with two stars to liven things up, which means there is a good chance of having an Enceladus, Europa, Titan, or Io ... and with a stretch even a colder Mars/Tatooine is a possible moon. I am already convinced that Carl Sagan and Frank Drake are right... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qSCYEcZrIY&feature=related ... it's a lot of wasted boring space ... and nothing is out there ... that we can't imagine... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRaLSVQBecU&feature=related ... and we already know everything we need to know to make it even more predictable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU1rI9YTkt0 Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
