Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

[Sound of Trumpet]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts



Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]


PhysOrg ^ | October 09, 2006 | Source: ESA/Hubble Information Centre


Posted on 10/10/2006 10:06:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv


This is an artist's concept of a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting the
nearby star Epsilon Eridani. Located 10.5 light-years away, it is the
closest known exoplanet to our Solar System. The planet is in an
elliptical orbit that carries it as close to the star as Earth is from
the Sun, and as far from the star as Jupiter is from the Sun. Epsilon
Eridani is a young star, only 800 million years old. It is still
surrounded by a disk of dust that extends 30 billion kilometers from
the star. The disk appears as a linear sheet of reflecting dust in this
view because it is seen edge-on from the planet's orbit, which is in
the same plane as the dust disk. The planet's rings and satellites are
purely hypothetical in this view, but plausible. As a gas giant, the
planet is uninhabitable for life as we know it. However, any moons
might have conditions suitable for life. Astronomers determined the
planet's mass and orbital tilt in 2006 by using Hubble to measure the
unseen planet's gravitational pull on the star as it slowly moved
across the sky. Evidence for the planet first appeared in 2000 when
astronomers measured a tell-tale wobble in the star. Credit: Credit:
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)


More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed
that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around
their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200
extrasolar planets and have seen many debris disks around young stars,
they have yet to observe a planet and a debris disk around the same
star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with
ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and
scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks
around stars.

The Hubble observations by an international team of astronomers led by
G. Fritz Benedict and Barbara E. McArthur of the University of Texas,
Austin, USA, show for the first time that a planet is aligned with its
star's circumstellar disk of dust and gas. The planet, detected in year
2000, orbits the nearby Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani, located 10.5
light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The planet's
orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the
star's disk is tilted. The results will appear in the November issue of
the Astronomical Journal.

The planets in our Solar System share a common alignment, evidence that
they were created at the same time in the Sun's disk. But the Sun is a
middle-aged star - 4.5 billion years old - and its debris disk
dissipated long ago. Epsilon Eridani, however, still retains its disk
because it is young, only 800 million years old.

The Hubble observations also helped Benedict's team determine the
planet's true mass, which they calculate as 1.5 times Jupiter's mass.
Previous estimates measured only the lower limit, at 0.7 the mass of
Jupiter. The planet, called Epsilon Eridani b, is the nearest
extrasolar planet to Earth. It orbits its star every 6.9 years.

"Because of Hubble, we know for sure that it is a planet and not a
failed star," McArthur explained. Some astronomers have argued that a
few of the known extrasolar planets could be brown dwarfs because their
precise masses are not known. If an object is less than 10 Jupiter
masses, it is a planet, not a brown dwarf.

McArthur was part of an earlier team at the University of Texas at
Austin's McDonald Observatory who discovered Epsilon Eridani b. They
detected the planet using the radial-velocity method, which measures a
star's subtle motion toward and away from Earth to find unseen
companions.

Epsilon Eridani is a young and active star, so some astronomers claimed
that what appeared as a planet-induced wobble of the star could have
been the actions of the star itself. Turbulence in the atmosphere may
have produced apparent velocity changes that were intrinsic to the star
and not due to a planet's influence.

The current Benedict-McArthur team calculated the planet's mass and its
orbit by making extremely precise measurements of the star's location
as it wobbled on the sky, a technique called astrometry. The slight
wobbles are caused by the gravitational tug of the unseen planet, like
a small dog pulling its master on a leash. The team studied over a
thousand astrometric observations from Hubble collected over three
years. The astronomers combined these data with other astrometric
observations made at the University of Pittsburgh's Allegheny
Observatory. They then added those measurements to hundreds of
ground-based radial-velocity measurements made over the past 25 years
at European Southern Observatory in Chile, McDonald Observatory at the
University of Texas, Lick Observatory at the University of California
Observatories, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. This
combination allowed them to accurately determine the planet's mass by
deducing the tilt of its orbit.

If astronomers don't know how a planet's orbit is tilted with respect
to Earth, they can only estimate a minimum mass for the planet. If only
the radial velocity wobble along the line of sight is known, the
planet's mass could be significantly larger if the orbit were tilted to
a nearly face-on orientation to Earth. The star would only move toward
and away from Earth slightly, even though it had a massive companion.

"You can't see the wobble induced by the planet with the naked eye,"
Benedict said. "But Hubble's fine guidance sensors are so precise that
they can measure the wobble. We basically watched three years of a
nearly seven-year-long dance of the star and its invisible partner, the
planet, around their orbits. The fine guidance sensors measured a tiny
change in the star's position, equivalent to the width of a Euro coin
1200 km away."

Epsilon Eridani has long captivated the attention of science fiction
writers, as well as astronomers. In 1960, years before the first
extrasolar planet was detected, astronomer Frank Drake listened for
radio transmissions from inhabitants of any possible planets around
Epsilon Eridani as part of Project Ozma's search for intelligent
extraterrestrial life. In the fictional "Star Trek" universe, Epsilon
Eridani is considered by some fans to be the parent star for the planet
Vulcan, Mr. Spock's home.

No Vulcan or any other alien could live on this gas giant planet. If
moons circled the planet, they would spend part of their orbit close
enough to Epsilon Eridani to have surface temperatures like that of
Earth, and possibly liquid water. However, the planet's looping,
"roller-coaster" orbit also would carry the moons far away from the
star, a distance equal to Jupiter's 800-million-kilometre separation
from the Sun, where oceans would freeze. If a moon were massive enough,
like Saturn's giant moon Titan, it could have a sufficiently dense
atmosphere that would retain heat. Such an atmosphere would suppress
wide swings in surface temperatures, like covering up with a heavy
blanket on a cold night. This could make such a moon potentially
habitable for life as we know it, Benedict said.

Although Hubble and other telescopes cannot image the gas giant planet
now, they may be able to snap pictures of it in 2007, when its orbit is
closest to Epsilon Eridani. The planet may be bright enough in
reflected sunlight to be imaged by Hubble, other space-based cameras,
and large ground-based telescopes.


Source: ESA/Hubble Information Centre

[raven1]

On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<***@myway.com> wrote:

<snip>

And your point was?
--

"O Sybilli, si ergo
Fortibus es in ero
O Nobili! Themis trux
Sivat sinem? Causen Dux"

[Ghod]

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

Quite prominent.

[Al Klein]

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:52:28 -0500, raven1

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

Where it's always been - at the top of his neck.

[Mark K. Bilbo]

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

Him? Point? You're trying to be funny huh?

[Eric D. Berge]

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:52:28 -0500, raven1

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

On his head.

[Jordan]

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

I think he's trying to argue that science fiction has in some way been
"defeated" by the discovery of this planet. Which shows his
astrophysical illiteracy: the existence of this planet does not
preclude the existence of other, more habitable planets in the Epsilon
Eridani system (though it _might_, if it migrated from far enough out
and swept up enough of the proto-planetary dust cloud in doing so).
The Sot seems not to grasp that our current interstellar planet-finding
techniques are heavily biased towards discovering large planets close
to their primaries, and that star systems may have more than one planet
(indeed, we've already discovered three planets in some systems, even
with our limited methods).

- Jordan

[Henry Spencer]

...the existence of this planet does not
preclude the existence of other, more habitable planets in the Epsilon
Eridani system (though it _might_, if it migrated from far enough out
and swept up enough of the proto-planetary dust cloud in doing so)...

Yes and no and no and yes. :-)

The bad news is that a "hot Jupiter" almost certainly has to form fairly
far out, as a gas giant, beyond the habitable zone, and migrate inward
through the habitable zone. The migration is bad news for existing
planets there.

The good news is that some recent work indicates that a hot Jupiter
migrating inward can actually spawn Earth-sized planets in its wake, so to
speak. So the presence of a big close planet indeed *doesn't* preclude
smaller planets in the habitable zone, as many people thought.

However, note that *this* big boy isn't a hot Jupiter -- its orbit is
quite elliptical. It sweeps *through* the habitable zone once per orbit.
You can pretty much forget about other planets there.

However however, as the news release noted, there is some possibility that
a Titan-like moon, with a dense atmosphere, orbiting the big boy might be
habitable.

[w***@Phreaker.net]

Post by Henry Spencer

...the existence of this planet does not
preclude the existence of other, more habitable planets in the Epsilon
Eridani system (though it _might_, if it migrated from far enough out
and swept up enough of the proto-planetary dust cloud in doing so)...

Yes and no and no and yes. :-)
The bad news is that a "hot Jupiter" almost certainly has to form fairly
far out, as a gas giant, beyond the habitable zone, and migrate inward
through the habitable zone. The migration is bad news for existing
planets there.
The good news is that some recent work indicates that a hot Jupiter
migrating inward can actually spawn Earth-sized planets in its wake, so to
speak. So the presence of a big close planet indeed *doesn't* preclude
smaller planets in the habitable zone, as many people thought.

Did you meant this?


http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=11909


'Hot Jupiter' Systems may Harbor Earth-like Planets


Final results of three planet formation simulations, compared to the
Solar system. The radius of the terrestrial planets scales as the cube
root of their mass, and the color represents their total water content
according to the scale shown. The habitable zone is drawn in grey, and
the short lines under the planets indicate the radial range of their
orbits. The positions of gas giants are given by the grey circles,
which are not to the same scale as the rocky planets.

The catalogue of confirmed extrasolar planets ('exoplanets') is growing
rapidly. There are currently approximately 133 known planetary systems,
harboring a total of 156 exoplanets as of January 2006*. With regard to
the search for life-sustaining worlds, however, the results have been
disappointing. Most of the exoplanets identified so far are so-called
"hot Jupiters", gas giants in a stable orbit very close to their star.
Stellar systems with a hot Jupiter were once thought to be incapable of
forming Earth-like planets, but suprising new evidence indicates
otherwise.

A planetary system begins its life as a disk of gas and dust
surrounding a newborn star. As dust particles rich in heavy elements
meet in their orbits, they can stick together and form larger, rocky
grains. Eventually the disk of gas gives rise to a swirling swarm of
'planetary embryos', rocky bodies a few hundred miles across. Far
from the stately ballet that we see in our own, mature solar system,
the embryos are constantly getting thrown into new orbits by close
encounters with their siblings.

Hot Jupiters are thought to form in the earliest stages of this
process, as the largest embryos begin to accumulate mass at a truly
impressive rate. One or more may grow into a full-fledged gas giant,
clearing the disk of all debris in a wide band around their orbit.
Nearby particles and embryos are either sucked into the giant, captured
as satellites (forming moons or rings), or flung into a new orbit.
Often these planets migrate towards their parent star as they form,
wreaking havoc in their wake. The disk is depleted of matter as they
slowly spiral inwards, so planetary embryos inside the giant's
original orbit would appear to have a low chance of survival.

Sean Raymond, at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for
Atmospheric and Space Physics, doesn't agree. The gravitational
interactions involved can be modeled, and Jupiter-sized planets can
migrate to a close, stable orbit more quickly than one might think. If
a hot Jupiter settles into its final home while the planetary embryos
are forming, the inner disk might still contain enough gas and dust to
form terrestrial planets even after being thinned out by the gas
giant's passage.

Raymond has been collaborating with Tom Quinn (University of
Washington) and Jonathan Lunine (University of Arizona) on the problem
of planet formation in hot Jupiter systems. Their approach is to track
the evolution of these systems through N-body simulations of the
gravitational interactions between planetary embryos. In one set of
simulations, already published in the journal Icarus, 120 to 180
embryos are randomly distributed over a disk of radius 5 AU (roughly
the radius of our own Jupiter's orbit). A 'hot Jupiter' (placed at
a distance of 0.15, 0.25, or 0.5 AU from the star) forms the inner
limit of the simulated disk, and in some simulations a Jupiter-sized
planet is also placed at 5.2 AU. Because the particles are supposed to
represent a planetary disk depleted by the hot Jupiter's migration,
their total mass is actually rather low.

Each protoplanet is given an iron and water content according to its
distance from the star, with a significant water content only occurring
at distances greater than 2 AU (the "snow line", beyond which solid
ice can form in the disk). As the simulation progresses, gravitational
interactions between the protoplanets allow the orbits to evolve
naturally towards a final, stable state. On a close approach,
protoplanets can accrete in an inelastic collision.

After a hundred million years or so, the planetesimals been reduced to
a handful of Earth-like planets. Quite often, a planet with high water
content forms in the habitable zone of the star (the region with
surface temperatures that permit liquid water). If a gas giant forms
early and migrates quickly, rocky and even watery worlds could well
have formed in its aftermath.

One might argue that the effect of the gas giant's migration through
the disk might be even more disruptive than we think-who's to say
that it doesn't obliterate the disk entirely as it passes through? To
answer this question, Raymond is currently collaborating with Avi
Mandell and Steinn Sigurdsson (Penn State University) to improve the
simulations. Not only has the number of embryos grown to about a
thousand, but Raymond also follows their progress during a gas giant's
migration towards the star. As one might expect, most of the planetary
embryos are kicked into highly eccentric orbits by the gas giant as it
passes through. Despite this disruptive influence, quite a lot of dust
and gas is left over for planet formation. "As long as you include
the effects of gas drag to recircularize the [planetesimal] orbits,"
Raymond explains to PhysOrg.com, "you end up preserving about a third
of the starting mass."

They're getting some surprising results, too. They sometimes end up
with a planet several times more massive than the Earth in an orbit
very close to the star. According to Raymond, "In front of the giant
planet, material piles up and forms a large, rocky planet very quickly.
There isn't supposed to be that much mass within 0.1 AU of the star."
The detection of large, rocky planets in close orbits, where the disk
was too thin for them have accreted locally, would therefore be quite a
coup for the collaboration. In fact, just such a planet may have been
detected (albeit weakly) last year by a team of researchers using Keck
observatory's high-resolution spectrometer (Rivera et al., 2005).

Not only are hot Jupiters easily detected, their stellar systems would
appear to be promising targets in the search for terrestrial
exoplanets. In the future, Raymond plans to extend this technique to
the study of planet formation around low-mass stars and binary stars.

*http://exoplanets.org

[Henry Spencer]

Post by w***@Phreaker.net

Post by Henry Spencer
The good news is that some recent work indicates that a hot Jupiter
migrating inward can actually spawn Earth-sized planets in its wake, so to
speak. So the presence of a big close planet indeed *doesn't* preclude
smaller planets in the habitable zone, as many people thought.

Did you meant this?
http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=11909

Actually, I meant Raymond et al, "Exotic Earths: Forming Habitable Worlds
with Giant Planet Migration", Science 313 (8 Sept 2006) p. 1413. However,
that URL looks like a slightly earlier report about the same work that
produced that paper.

[w***@Phreaker.net]

Post by Henry Spencer

...the existence of this planet does not
preclude the existence of other, more habitable planets in the Epsilon
Eridani system (though it _might_, if it migrated from far enough out
and swept up enough of the proto-planetary dust cloud in doing so)...

Yes and no and no and yes. :-)
The bad news is that a "hot Jupiter" almost certainly has to form fairly
far out, as a gas giant, beyond the habitable zone, and migrate inward
through the habitable zone. The migration is bad news for existing
planets there.
The good news is that some recent work indicates that a hot Jupiter
migrating inward can actually spawn Earth-sized planets in its wake, so to
speak. So the presence of a big close planet indeed *doesn't* preclude
smaller planets in the habitable zone, as many people thought.
However, note that *this* big boy isn't a hot Jupiter -- its orbit is
quite elliptical. It sweeps *through* the habitable zone once per orbit.
You can pretty much forget about other planets there.

Here is older article that shows Earthlike life could be possible even
on eccentric planets


http://discover.com/issues/nov-02/features/featcircles/


Circles of Life



How far out of whack can the orbit of a planet like Earth get before we
all die?

By William Speed Weed
Illustrations by +ISM

DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 11 | November 2002


EARTH'S ORBIT (the red line above) is a near-perfect circle. But what
if the planet took a more eccentric path? Astronomer Darren Williams
has run computer simulations of various orbits. In one of the mildest,
the planet comes closer to the sun than Venus, then sails to the chilly
periphery of Mars. In the most extreme (the dark blue line), Earth
careens closer than Mercury, then flies nearly to the asteroid belt. In
every case, as the temperature averages show, the planet is habitable.

Earth is a Goldilocks kind of place: Not too hot, not too cold. Things
here are just right. We have a solid rock to stand on, liquid water to
sustain us, and an atmosphere to shield us from radiation. Our cozy
planet happens to lie just the right distance from the sun, in what
astronomers call the habitable zone. But that's not all. On a larger
scale, we live in a galaxy that is not too young, not too old. For a
few billion years after the Big Bang, there was nothing but hydrogen
and helium in the cosmos-nothing to make up terrestrial planets. It
took the first few generations of stars to forge heavier elements like
oxygen, iron, and uranium, which may power Earth's churning, molten
interior. By the time our sun formed 4.5 billion years ago, there was
plenty of planet-making material around. But the universe is aging, and
astronomers predict it will run out of radioactive uranium, potassium,
and thorium, and planets that form later will be as dead as the moon.

Within our just-right galaxy, we also live in a just-right spot,
about halfway out from the center-not too far in, not too far out. At
the core of the Milky Way, the stars are packed together so tightly
that they nearly collide with one another, and interstellar radiation
would make life-or at least complex life as we know it-impossible.
Out at the rim of the galaxy, there aren't enough stars to produce the
heavy elements needed for terrestrial planets. Out there, you might get
a rocky Mercury, about one-twentieth the size of Earth, but its gravity
would be too weak to hold on to an atmosphere.

Here in our solar system, in the just-right spot around a
just-right star, our Goldilocks planet runs laps around the sun in a
nearly perfect circular orbit, always staying 93 million miles from the
fire. For decades, astronomers assumed that an orbit like this was
essential to habitability. A planet that moved in an oval or ellipse
would swing too close to the sun at one end of its orbit and sail into
the chilly beyond at the other end. If elliptical orbits prohibit life,
it means that astronomers searching for Earth-like planets have fewer
candidates to choose from. It also means that Earth is vulnerable. If a
wandering star or a rogue black hole were to perturb the orbit of
Jupiter, deforming Earth's orbit in turn-an extremely unlikely event,
but astronomers estimate there are 10 million rogue black holes in the
Milky Way-all life on the planet would be destroyed.

Or maybe not. Astronomer Darren Williams and his colleagues at
Pennsylvania State University at Erie have been studying elliptical
orbits recently, and they think life on Earth can withstand a lot more
tumult than scientists previously guessed. They have been running
sophisticated computer models of planets in orbits of varying
eccentricity circling suns of various sizes. "High eccentricity does
not critically compromise planetary habitability," Williams says. Then
he drops the astrobiology lingo and translates with a boyish smile:
"These planets will still support life."

In the Zone

AT ANY SCALE, Earth sits squarely in the planetary comfort zone-the
narrow margin in space and time where the right kind of star can give
rise to the right kind of planet with the right conditions for life.
Most scientists agree that the following criteria apply to higher
life-forms. Single-celled organisms are extremely adaptable and may be
able to survive in harsher climes.


Local Zoning Laws

The habitable zone around a star is defined by the distance at which
water on a planet's surface can remain liquid. In our solar system, the
zone's inner limit is just outside the orbit of Venus; its outer edge
is near Mars. Whether the Red Planet is inside the zone is still a
matter of debate.


Galatic Zoning Laws

Near a galaxy's core and in its spiral arms, the stars are so dense
that they may give off too much radiation and cause too many
gravity-perturbing collisions to support life. Stars too far from the
center may contain too few metals to make planets massive enough to
hold on to an atmosphere. The sun sits right in between these extremes.



Universal Zoning Laws

At the very largest scale, life depends more on time than space. Right
after the Big Bang, only helium and hydrogen existed. It took 6 billion
years for the heavy elements to form that are needed for
life-supporting planets. Several billion years from now, some of those
elements-uranium 235, for instance-will begin to run out.

With his dimpled cheeks, handsome face, and wardrobe of quiet collared
shirts, Williams looks like a man who might draw his circles round. It
was his mentor, renowned geoscientist Jim Kasting, who first defined
the "habitable zone" in which planets could support life. The idea had
been floating around since the 1960s, but in the early 1990s, Kasting
used computer modeling to determine the zone's exact dimensions:
between 79 million and 140 million miles from a star (farther out for
hotter stars, closer in for cooler stars). Outside that narrow path,
Kasting argued, planets will overheat or freeze.

At the time, astronomers knew only of planets with fairly circular
orbits. But when the first extrasolar planets were discovered in 1995,
some of their orbits were highly elliptical. Williams decided to see
how life would fare in this unknown territory-and if his mentor's
formula would hold. He teamed up with Penn State colleague David
Pollard, a paleoclimatologist who has developed a respected computer
model he uses to study Earth's ancient climate. The model, known as
GENESIS2, is made up of 70,000 lines of computer code that mimic
Earth's atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, and a host of other factors,
including the shape of its orbit. To push Earth into an oval orbit, all
Pollard had to do was plug in a new number.

If an orbit is perfectly circular, in the model it is said to have
an eccentricity of 0; a straight line has an eccentricity of 1. Earth's
orbit is very close to the former-0.0167. Pollard and Williams
decided to stretch it toward the other extreme. They ran models for
eccentricities of 0.1, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.7. In each case, they kept the
average distance of the orbit the same: Earth still made one lap of the
sun in 365 days. They let each simulation run for 30 theoretical years
and then looked to see what Earth's climate was like in the brave new
orbits.

The least eccentric orbit-0.1-kept the planet inside the
habitable zone all year long; not surprisingly, there was barely any
change in climate. At higher eccentricities, though, things got
interesting. As astronomer Johannes Kepler explained in 1609, the more
elliptical a planet's path, the closer it gets to the sun at one end of
its orbit (known as perihelion), and the farther from the sun it goes
at the other end (known as aphelion). At an eccentricity of 0.3, the
planet's orbit would pass inside the orbital path of Venus at
perihelion and fly within 20 million miles of Mars at aphelion. In
Pollard's model, though, even when Earth drew closer to the sun than
Venus, it didn't develop a Venus-like climate. "Water has a very high
heat capacity," Williams says, "so the large amount of water on Earth
is slow to warm up." And the heat wouldn't last long. As Kepler also
explained, planets on eccentric orbits travel fastest at perihelion,
accelerating furiously. "Well before the oceans start boiling,"
Williams says, "the planet is racing away."
At the other end of an eccentric orbit, Earth slows down again. But
here the climate model takes a strange and welcome turn. The planet
absorbs so much heat during its brief trip a around the sun, Williams
explains, that its coldest months out by Mars are still warmer than
winter months on a circular orbit: The average global temperature is 73
degrees Fahrenheit, versus 58 degrees on Earth now. It's not a
perfectly regulated system: Some parts of the African, South American,
and Australian interiors heat up to 140 degrees at perihelion. But the
extreme temperatures only last a month or two. Erie, Pennsylvania,
where Williams lives with his wife and two children, is nearly as
temperate and cozy in a 0.3 orbit as it is on a circular one. On a 0.4
orbit, the annual mean temperature jumps to 86 degrees, and larger
landmasses become insufferably hot. But again, Williams says, "This is
a habitable planet."



Heavy Eccentricity

On Earth's familiar, circular orbit, the seasons are determined by the
planet's tilted axis. When the Northern Hemisphere leans toward the
sun, it's summer there; when it leans away, it's winter. On an
eccentric orbit, the distance to the sun makes all the difference. The
maps below show how temperatures would vary worldwide, over the course
of a year, if Earth's orbit had a mild eccentricity of 0.3 (top) or a
high eccentricity of 0.7 (bottom). Note how temperatures rise and fall
much more dramatically on land than on sea. The oceans act as giant
planetary temperature regulators: They absorb massive amounts of heat
at the solar end of the orbit, then slowly release it as the planet
swings into frigid space. On the mildly eccentric orbit, the planet
passes closest to the sun in February, but the oceans continue to
absorb heat in the weeks that follow. The hottest months are March and
April, when temperatures in Africa rise above 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Winter temperatures reach their lowest point in August and September,
when the planet swings out toward Mars. Yet even the Arctic never cools
down below 32 degrees, because the oceans are still releasing their
pent-up heat. On a highly eccentric orbit, the distances and
temperature swings are far more extreme. Here the planet comes closest
to the sun in early March, bringing continental temperatures near the
equator all the way to the boiling point. That heat, retained by the
oceans and atmosphere, keeps much of the planet sweltering until it's
hurtling out toward the asteroid belt. The Arctic Ocean would melt in
this scenario, offering prime beachfront real estate.

The final simulation showed just how far the boundaries of life can be
pushed. This time, Williams threw the planet into an orbit with an
eccentricity of 0.7, sending it closer to the sun than Mercury at its
perihelion and well beyond Mars at its aphelion. In all, it would spend
only 75 days of the year in the habitable zone. Could such a world be
habitable?

Well, yes, but only if you cheat a little. Before they ran the
simulation, Pollard and Williams reduced the sun's luminosity by 29
percent. They knew, by then, that planets with eccentric orbits get
hotter than planets with circular orbits, even if their average
distance from the sun is the same. Widening the eccentric orbit would
have made the planet more habitable, but the GENESIS2 model has a
365-day year hardwired into it. So the researchers took another tack:
They dimmed the sun just enough so that the overall heat the planet
received would be the same as for our Earth. Any changes in climate
could then be attributed to the highly eccentric orbit.

Even with a dimmer sun, life on a 0.7 orbit isn't exactly what we
would call comfortable. In Erie, Pennsylvania, summer temperatures
spike to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun looks twice as large in
the sky. It doesn't rain for months, and the evaporation rate is so
high that Lake Erie dries up altogether. Six months later, in the
chilly winter beyond the orbit of Mars, the sun shrinks to half its
usual size in the sky. The oceans have stored up so much heat during
the summer that temperatures still stay mostly above freezing. "It
never snows in Erie, Pennsylvania-something people around here would
be thrilled about," Williams says. "But we'd have to migrate with those
summer temperatures so high."

Most likely, we wouldn't come back. In a 0.7 orbit, the Arctic
Ocean melts, Pollard says, "and anywhere on its shores-Norway for
instance-wouldn't be such a bad place to live." By contrast, central
Africa in the summer is a stovetop with temperatures near boiling-if
there were any water to boil. Higher life forms probably could not live
there, Williams says. But microbes have been shown to withstand
temperatures of 230 degrees, and nowhere on this vastly changed Earth
does it get that hot. The oceans get hotter, but not so hot that they
boil away. Life is certainly different on this Earth-but it's still
life.

"The bottom line is that this planet is habitable," Williams says,
beaming. Even his mentor, Kasting, agrees: "Planetary habitability is
not that hard to achieve." Tinker with the planet a bit, and the
possibilities for life get even better. A bigger ocean, for instance,
or a thick, insulating atmosphere like Venus's, would help smooth out
the temperature extremes on eccentric orbits.

We may already have such rocks in our sights. In the past seven
years, more than 100 extrasolar planets have been detected through a
method known as radial velocity. Astronomers can't actually see these
planets, only a telltale wobble in the stars that the planets are
orbiting. But the amplitude and timing of the wobble can reveal a
planet's size as well as the shape of its orbit. One star, 16 Cygni B,
has a planet with an eccentric orbit of 0.67; another star, HD222582,
has a planet with an orbit of 0.71. Both these stars are brighter than
our sun, but their planets have a wider orbit than Earth, so they pass
straight through the habitable zone. The planets are gas giants like
Jupiter and thus less likely to harbor life. But according to
Williams's climate calculations, if they have large rocky moons, those
moons could be habitable.

Here Kasting sounds a note of caution: "It's going to be very hard
to detect those moons if they exist," he says, and the total population
of planets in eccentric orbits may be small. Solar systems with
elliptical orbits tend to be less stable than systems with circular
orbits: Their planets can cross one another's path and bang into each
other.

When astronomers get better at detecting planets, Kasting suspects,
they will find a host of Earths out there, running circular orbits
inside his habitable zone. Still, he says, Williams's work is "one more
reason to be optimistic" that we can find another Earth-even if it is
a bit more eccentric.

[w***@Phreaker.net]

Post by Jordan

Post by raven1
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<snip>
And your point was?

I think he's trying to argue that science fiction has in some way been
"defeated" by the discovery of this planet.

There are three possible explanations (as far as Ray's "thoughts" can
be explained)

1/ Ray thinks that Star Trek is real

2/ Ray thinks that Star Trek fans think that Star Trek is real

3/ Ray is an atheist Loki troll who tries to make fundamentalist look
even stupider than they really are



Which shows his

Post by Jordan
astrophysical illiteracy: the existence of this planet does not
preclude the existence of other, more habitable planets in the Epsilon
Eridani system (though it _might_, if it migrated from far enough out
and swept up enough of the proto-planetary dust cloud in doing so).
The Sot seems not to grasp that our current interstellar planet-finding
techniques are heavily biased towards discovering large planets close
to their primaries, and that star systems may have more than one planet
(indeed, we've already discovered three planets in some systems, even
with our limited methods).
- Jordan

[Douglas Berry]

On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800 "Sound of Trumpet"
<***@myway.com> said the following in alt.atheism and I was
immediately reminded of 1,000 Chinchillas singing Handel's "Messiah"
for some reason...

Post by Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts
Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]

So? The reality is far more interesting than Star Trek, and the geek
in me is compelled to point out that E. Eridani was never officially
identified as Vulcan.

Anyway, Epsilon Eridani is far too young to be home to an advanced
biosystem. Any rocky planets in the system are still being bombarded
by planetoids on a regular basis.
--

Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

[Frank Glover]

Post by Douglas Berry
On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800 "Sound of Trumpet"
immediately reminded of 1,000 Chinchillas singing Handel's "Messiah"
for some reason...

Post by Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts
Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]

So? The reality is far more interesting than Star Trek, and the geek
in me is compelled to point out that E. Eridani was never officially
identified as Vulcan.

Correct. It's generally understood to be a planet of 40 Eridani
(though I've heard Epsilon Indi mentioned, as well):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_systems_in_fiction#40_Eridani

Post by Douglas Berry
Anyway, Epsilon Eridani is far too young to be home to an advanced
biosystem. Any rocky planets in the system are still being bombarded
by planetoids on a regular basis.

Right. Long ago, I had an idea for some stories that involved an
inhabited world of Epsilon Eridani, but as the above kind of data came
in some years back, and as it was still important to the story to use
that location, explaining the presence of such a planet around a
too-young star, gave me even better ideas...

Post by Douglas Berry
--
Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

--
Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

[Jordan]

Post by Frank Glover
Right. Long ago, I had an idea for some stories that involved an
inhabited world of Epsilon Eridani, but as the above kind of data came
in some years back, and as it was still important to the story to use
that location, explaining the presence of such a planet around a
too-young star, gave me even better ideas...

... for instance, I'm sure it's occurred to everyone who's thought
about this that, if there was even _one_ Forerunner race in our recent
enough past, there could be biosystems on planets of _very_ young star
systems. Because they were exported there.

- Jordan

[William December Starr]

Post by Douglas Berry
So? The reality is far more interesting than Star Trek,

Heretic! Blasphemer!

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts
Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]
PhysOrg ^ | October 09, 2006 | Source: ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Posted on 10/10/2006 10:06:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
This is an artist's concept of a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting the
nearby star Epsilon Eridani. Located 10.5 light-years away, it is the
closest known exoplanet to our Solar System. The planet is in an
elliptical orbit that carries it as close to the star as Earth is from
the Sun, and as far from the star as Jupiter is from the Sun. Epsilon
Eridani is a young star, only 800 million years old. It is still
surrounded by a disk of dust that extends 30 billion kilometers from
the star. The disk appears as a linear sheet of reflecting dust in this
view because it is seen edge-on from the planet's orbit, which is in
the same plane as the dust disk. The planet's rings and satellites are
purely hypothetical in this view, but plausible. As a gas giant, the
planet is uninhabitable for life as we know it. However, any moons
might have conditions suitable for life. Astronomers determined the
planet's mass and orbital tilt in 2006 by using Hubble to measure the
unseen planet's gravitational pull on the star as it slowly moved
across the sky. Evidence for the planet first appeared in 2000 when
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed
that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around
their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200
extrasolar planets and have seen many debris disks around young stars,
they have yet to observe a planet and a debris disk around the same
star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with
ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and
scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks
around stars.
The Hubble observations by an international team of astronomers led by
G. Fritz Benedict and Barbara E. McArthur of the University of Texas,
Austin, USA, show for the first time that a planet is aligned with its
star's circumstellar disk of dust and gas. The planet, detected in year
2000, orbits the nearby Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani, located 10.5
light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The planet's
orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the
star's disk is tilted. The results will appear in the November issue of
the Astronomical Journal.
The planets in our Solar System share a common alignment, evidence that
they were created at the same time in the Sun's disk. But the Sun is a
middle-aged star - 4.5 billion years old - and its debris disk
dissipated long ago. Epsilon Eridani, however, still retains its disk
because it is young, only 800 million years old.
The Hubble observations also helped Benedict's team determine the
planet's true mass, which they calculate as 1.5 times Jupiter's mass.
Previous estimates measured only the lower limit, at 0.7 the mass of
Jupiter. The planet, called Epsilon Eridani b, is the nearest
extrasolar planet to Earth. It orbits its star every 6.9 years.
"Because of Hubble, we know for sure that it is a planet and not a
failed star," McArthur explained. Some astronomers have argued that a
few of the known extrasolar planets could be brown dwarfs because their
precise masses are not known. If an object is less than 10 Jupiter
masses, it is a planet, not a brown dwarf.
McArthur was part of an earlier team at the University of Texas at
Austin's McDonald Observatory who discovered Epsilon Eridani b. They
detected the planet using the radial-velocity method, which measures a
star's subtle motion toward and away from Earth to find unseen
companions.
Epsilon Eridani is a young and active star, so some astronomers claimed
that what appeared as a planet-induced wobble of the star could have
been the actions of the star itself. Turbulence in the atmosphere may
have produced apparent velocity changes that were intrinsic to the star
and not due to a planet's influence.
The current Benedict-McArthur team calculated the planet's mass and its
orbit by making extremely precise measurements of the star's location
as it wobbled on the sky, a technique called astrometry. The slight
wobbles are caused by the gravitational tug of the unseen planet, like
a small dog pulling its master on a leash. The team studied over a
thousand astrometric observations from Hubble collected over three
years. The astronomers combined these data with other astrometric
observations made at the University of Pittsburgh's Allegheny
Observatory. They then added those measurements to hundreds of
ground-based radial-velocity measurements made over the past 25 years
at European Southern Observatory in Chile, McDonald Observatory at the
University of Texas, Lick Observatory at the University of California
Observatories, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. This
combination allowed them to accurately determine the planet's mass by
deducing the tilt of its orbit.
If astronomers don't know how a planet's orbit is tilted with respect
to Earth, they can only estimate a minimum mass for the planet. If only
the radial velocity wobble along the line of sight is known, the
planet's mass could be significantly larger if the orbit were tilted to
a nearly face-on orientation to Earth. The star would only move toward
and away from Earth slightly, even though it had a massive companion.
"You can't see the wobble induced by the planet with the naked eye,"
Benedict said. "But Hubble's fine guidance sensors are so precise that
they can measure the wobble. We basically watched three years of a
nearly seven-year-long dance of the star and its invisible partner, the
planet, around their orbits. The fine guidance sensors measured a tiny
change in the star's position, equivalent to the width of a Euro coin
1200 km away."
Epsilon Eridani has long captivated the attention of science fiction
writers, as well as astronomers. In 1960, years before the first
extrasolar planet was detected, astronomer Frank Drake listened for
radio transmissions from inhabitants of any possible planets around
Epsilon Eridani as part of Project Ozma's search for intelligent
extraterrestrial life. In the fictional "Star Trek" universe, Epsilon
Eridani is considered by some fans to be the parent star for the planet
Vulcan, Mr. Spock's home.
No Vulcan or any other alien could live on this gas giant planet. If
moons circled the planet, they would spend part of their orbit close
enough to Epsilon Eridani to have surface temperatures like that of
Earth, and possibly liquid water. However, the planet's looping,
"roller-coaster" orbit also would carry the moons far away from the
star, a distance equal to Jupiter's 800-million-kilometre separation
from the Sun, where oceans would freeze. If a moon were massive enough,
like Saturn's giant moon Titan, it could have a sufficiently dense
atmosphere that would retain heat. Such an atmosphere would suppress
wide swings in surface temperatures, like covering up with a heavy
blanket on a cold night. This could make such a moon potentially
habitable for life as we know it, Benedict said.
Although Hubble and other telescopes cannot image the gas giant planet
now, they may be able to snap pictures of it in 2007, when its orbit is
closest to Epsilon Eridani. The planet may be bright enough in
reflected sunlight to be imaged by Hubble, other space-based cameras,
and large ground-based telescopes.
Source: ESA/Hubble Information Centre

Star Trek has done its time, move on

[Azaliah]

On 1 Nov 2006 17:56:48 -0800, while bungee jumping,

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Star Trek has done its time, move on

NEVER!!!

[e***@yahoo.com]

Sometimes I laugh on how rediculous Star Trek and Wars are. Because
some things they have done there contradicts with newer Science
discoveries. But I do respect them in a way because the path to the
future needs those mistakes.

There still be a time in the future when we will discover that all what
we knew was wrong. Good start though, but please move on to the next
level.

Post by Azaliah
On 1 Nov 2006 17:56:48 -0800, while bungee jumping,

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Star Trek has done its time, move on

NEVER!!!
--
Azaliah (ats-al-yaw'-hoo) "Jah has reserved"
<((>< <((>< <((><
"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
- John 17:17
.

[Raghar]

If you meant that system with B5, I did some calculation when I tried
to compute the minimal acceleration of the Star Furry.
There could well be planets close enough the star to have so called
habitable zone. Even with planet 1.55 mass of Jupiter with eccentricity
of 0.702 (+- 0.039) There could be a planet more close to the star.
It's smaller star with luminosity of >1/4, so habitable zone is 0.27 -
0.88

Solstation had slightly different numbers that looked strangely. So
lets recalculate it.

As everyone knows energy radiated from star depends on surface of star
and its temperature ^ 4

So E = k * TS^4 * 4 * PI * R^2

Luminosity per m^2 at distance "d" is
L = E/(4*PI*d^2)

Planet receives energy by atmosphere and surface, and area is the same
as if you'd split the sphere, and point bottom of the resulting cut to
the star. Basically it's area of a circle.

E2 = L * PI * R2^2
energy radiated away should be in long term roughly the same as
received.
Thus E2 = k * TP^4 * 4* PI * R2^2
L = k * T^4 * 4

L = k * TS^4 * R^2 / d^2
4* T^4 = TS^4 * R^2 / d^2

d = TS^2 * R / (2 * T^2)

T = 225 K - 375+ K
TS = approx 5000 K
AU = 1.49598E11 m
R = 591175000 m

d = (1.46E11m) 0.975742562 - (5.11751212E10m) 0.34208426 AU

Considering the planet would have some eccentricity distance 0.27 -
0.88 would be better. It's well under rule of three, and it's actually
under rule of five, thus habitable planets are plausible in that
system. In fact these planets could even be tilted against orbit of
that gas giant.
On the other hand if something evolved here, then these were probably
bacterias.

The ring around the sytem implies that system is somehow well behaved,
and hole insider of that ring imply a lot more planets that just that
gass giant.

I removed some groups from follow up.

[Mark K. Bilbo]

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.

Talk about grasping at straws...

[Jordan]

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Sot's argument is the rough logical equivalent of deciding that there
is no possibility of any sapient life on Earth by taking a random
meter-cubed volume of its sphere and noting that there are no sapient
entities in that cube :)

- Jordan

[Hatter]

Post by Jordan

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Sot's argument is the rough logical equivalent of deciding that there
is no possibility of any sapient life on Earth by taking a random
meter-cubed volume of its sphere and noting that there are no sapient
entities in that cube :)
- Jordan

Correct!

[Mark K. Bilbo]

Post by Jordan

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Sot's argument is the rough logical equivalent of deciding that there
is no possibility of any sapient life on Earth by taking a random
meter-cubed volume of its sphere and noting that there are no sapient
entities in that cube :)

Well, he can't find any in the volume of space he inhabits...

[Lord Calvert]

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Well, there is one teensy-weensy little problem with all that. Vulcan
is not supposed to be in orbit of Epslion Eridani. It is supposed to be
in orbit of 40 Eridani A. This information was confirmed by Roddenberry
in the "Star Trek: Star Charts" book and supported on the series
Enterprise when it is stated that Vulcan is 16 light years from Earth.
It has also been supported in several of the novels. 40 Eri is indeed
16 light years away from Earth. Epsilon Eridani is only 10� light
years away from Earth but in the same general direction (I love playing
around with Celestia).

Me thinks that SoT needs to do a little bit better basic research.


Rich Goranson
Amherst, NY, USA
aa#MCMXCIX, a-vet#1
EAC Department of Cruel and Unusual Astronomy

[Mark K. Bilbo]

Post by Lord Calvert

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Well, there is one teensy-weensy little problem with all that. Vulcan
is not supposed to be in orbit of Epslion Eridani. It is supposed to be
in orbit of 40 Eridani A. This information was confirmed by Roddenberry
in the "Star Trek: Star Charts" book and supported on the series
Enterprise when it is stated that Vulcan is 16 light years from Earth.
It has also been supported in several of the novels. 40 Eri is indeed
16 light years away from Earth. Epsilon Eridani is only 10œ light
years away from Earth but in the same general direction (I love playing
around with Celestia).
Me thinks that SoT needs to do a little bit better basic research.

Research? All he does is swipe copyrighted material in violation of
federal law to lecture us on morality...

[n***@nowhere.com]

Post by Lord Calvert

Post by Mark K. Bilbo

Star Trek Dreams Crushed: No Vulcan Could Live On Giant Planet Of Epsilon Eridani

You have *GOT* to be kidding.
Talk about grasping at straws...

Well, there is one teensy-weensy little problem with all that. Vulcan
is not supposed to be in orbit of Epslion Eridani. It is supposed to be
in orbit of 40 Eridani A. This information was confirmed by Roddenberry
in the "Star Trek: Star Charts" book and supported on the series
Enterprise when it is stated that Vulcan is 16 light years from Earth.
It has also been supported in several of the novels. 40 Eri is indeed
16 light years away from Earth. Epsilon Eridani is only 10? light
years away from Earth but in the same general direction (I love playing
around with Celestia).

Star Trek screenwriters and special effects people
themselves are unsure where Vulcan is and how it looks like
- look at the amazing mutations of Vulcan from fully red to
yellow and dark green planet ;-)


http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/planet_mutations.htm


TOS During The Original Series Spock's home planet appeared
twice. The first time was in TOS: "Amok Time" when we could
see Vulcan from the orbit as well as from the ground. As
perceived from the surface, Vulcan is a desert planet with
an intensely red sky.

[...]

The planet Vulcan is shown in TAS: "Yesteryear". Unlike the
pronounced reddish hue of TOS, the color of the soil and of
the sky is overall rather yellow here.


[...]


In TNG the planet is always ochre on the day side, in clear
contradiction to TOS and even to "Star Trek III". There is
no way to rationalize this, unless the spectrum of the star
or the condition of the atmosphere and soil had radically
changed in the 80 years since the TOS movies. Different
newly filmed takes in TNG: "Sarek" and TNG: "Gambit, Part
II" consistently show us this "re-imagination" of the planet
Vulcan.

[...]


ENT: "Strange New World" has a reference to Vulcan's sky.
Archer climbs off the shuttle that has just landed on the
planet that will later bear the name Archer IV and looks up
into the bright blue sky. He asks T'Pol, "Does the sky ever
get this blue on Vulcan?" She tells him, "Occasionally."
This is in contradiction to all pictures of the Vulcan sky,
unless T'Pol vastly exaggerates the blue portion of the
light.

Post by Lord Calvert
Me thinks that SoT needs to do a little bit better basic research.
Rich Goranson
Amherst, NY, USA
aa#MCMXCIX, a-vet#1
EAC Department of Cruel and Unusual Astronomy

[S***@gmail.com]

There is

Post by n***@nowhere.com
no way to rationalize this, unless the spectrum of the star
or the condition of the atmosphere and soil had radically
changed in the 80 years since the TOS movies. Different
newly filmed takes in TNG: "Sarek" and TNG: "Gambit, Part
II" consistently show us this "re-imagination" of the planet
Vulcan.

There's actually a really easy way to rationalize this: The filters
for the optical sensors have changed over time. Assuming that Vulcan
is relatively consistent on the surface level(My memory says it does),
what it looks like from space could be a product of the technology
used to view it. You could argue that since sometimes the viewpoint is
from outside a starship that it's not the ships optical sensors
changing the color of the planet, but then we're splitting hairs and
it's "sound in space" territory so no one cares. As for the sky being
blue on vulcan, there could be atmospheric phenomenon that would cause
it. After all, the sky is sometimes red on earth.

[Azaliah]

On 1 Nov 2006 14:43:43 -0800, while bungee jumping, "Sound of

Post by Sound of Trumpet
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed
that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around
their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200
extrasolar planets and have seen many debris disks around young stars,
they have yet to observe a planet and a debris disk around the same
star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with
ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and
scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks
around stars.

They haven't confirmed that. They saw something,
made an assumption and then decided to claim that
their assumption was confirmed.

[Ed]

I've been watching Star Trek again and something struck me.

You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

[Azaliah]

On 2 Nov 2006 06:29:51 -0800, while bungee jumping, "Ed"

Post by Ed
I've been watching Star Trek again and something struck me.
You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

Yes. Everyone knows that Vulcan has always been
an English speaking planet. :)

[Disneygeek]

Post by Azaliah
On 2 Nov 2006 06:29:51 -0800, while bungee jumping, "Ed"

Post by Ed
I've been watching Star Trek again and something struck me.
You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

Yes. Everyone knows that Vulcan has always been
an English speaking planet. :)

What started me on this was a sequence in the novelazation of
"Yesteryear" (Also known as "Mr. Spock's Time Trek.") A scene I don't
remember in the actual animated episode has Sarek talking to young
Spock and saying (paraphrasing) "Soon it will be time for you to take
your test on Vulcan's Forge, as the humans have so colorfully renamed
our S'hon a Shar desert!")

[Peter Bruells]

Post by Disneygeek
What started me on this was a sequence in the novelazation of
"Yesteryear" (Also known as "Mr. Spock's Time Trek.") A scene I don't
remember in the actual animated episode has Sarek talking to young
Spock and saying (paraphrasing) "Soon it will be time for you to take
your test on Vulcan's Forge, as the humans have so colorfully renamed
our S'hon a Shar desert!")

I betchat that "Shar" means desert in current Vulcan and "S'hon"
"desert" in old High Vulcan. (See "Mount Kilimanjaro" or "Sahara
desert")

[Henry Spencer]

Post by Peter Bruells
I betchat that "Shar" means desert in current Vulcan and "S'hon"
"desert" in old High Vulcan. (See "Mount Kilimanjaro" or "Sahara
desert")

Better yet, Tor Pen Coll Hill in England -- that's "hill hill hill hill".
The Romans asked what it was named, and were told "Pen", so they called
it "Pen Coll". The Saxons did the same and called it "Tor Pen Coll", and
one more iteration gives you the modern name. And "Pen" just means "the
hill" in Old Celtic... (Caveat: secondhand info, not personally checked.)

There are probably more examples of this than we know. Names of major
geographic features often persist across changes in local languages and
cultures, so in long-settled parts of the world, often the geographic
names are so old that we have no idea what they originally meant.

[Christopher A. Lee]

Post by Henry Spencer

Post by Peter Bruells
I betchat that "Shar" means desert in current Vulcan and "S'hon"
"desert" in old High Vulcan. (See "Mount Kilimanjaro" or "Sahara
desert")

Better yet, Tor Pen Coll Hill in England -- that's "hill hill hill hill".
The Romans asked what it was named, and were told "Pen", so they called
it "Pen Coll". The Saxons did the same and called it "Tor Pen Coll", and
one more iteration gives you the modern name. And "Pen" just means "the
hill" in Old Celtic... (Caveat: secondhand info, not personally checked.)

Tor Pen Tyne - Where they brew Northumberland whisky?

Merthyr Lated - ditto Welsh?

Post by Henry Spencer
There are probably more examples of this than we know. Names of major
geographic features often persist across changes in local languages and
cultures, so in long-settled parts of the world, often the geographic
names are so old that we have no idea what they originally meant.

[Greg D. Moore (Strider)]

Post by Henry Spencer

Post by Peter Bruells
I betchat that "Shar" means desert in current Vulcan and "S'hon"
"desert" in old High Vulcan. (See "Mount Kilimanjaro" or "Sahara
desert")

Better yet, Tor Pen Coll Hill in England -- that's "hill hill hill hill".
The Romans asked what it was named, and were told "Pen", so they called
it "Pen Coll". The Saxons did the same and called it "Tor Pen Coll", and
one more iteration gives you the modern name. And "Pen" just means "the
hill" in Old Celtic... (Caveat: secondhand info, not personally checked.)

Around here we have the Poestenkill Creek, Wynantskill Creek and a host of
others.

Of course the fact that Kill means creak in Dutch doesn't mean much around
here. :-)

And then of course PETA tried to get Fishkill to change the name of their
town.

At RPI they had Hall Hall, but that was a dormitory named after a guy named
Hall.

But the joke was that we couldn't call halls's "dorms" so calling it Hall
Hall Dorm or Hall Hall Dormitory was wrong, so the "obvious" solution was
Hall Hall Hall.

Of course until folks would start calling it Hall Hall Hall Dorm. :-)

Post by Henry Spencer
There are probably more examples of this than we know. Names of major
geographic features often persist across changes in local languages and
cultures, so in long-settled parts of the world, often the geographic
names are so old that we have no idea what they originally meant.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

[Azaliah]

On 2 Nov 2006 10:41:00 -0800, while bungee jumping,

Post by Disneygeek

Post by Azaliah
On 2 Nov 2006 06:29:51 -0800, while bungee jumping, "Ed"

Post by Ed
I've been watching Star Trek again and something struck me.
You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

Yes. Everyone knows that Vulcan has always been
an English speaking planet. :)

What started me on this was a sequence in the novelazation of
"Yesteryear" (Also known as "Mr. Spock's Time Trek.") A scene I don't
remember in the actual animated episode has Sarek talking to young
Spock and saying (paraphrasing) "Soon it will be time for you to take
your test on Vulcan's Forge, as the humans have so colorfully renamed
our S'hon a Shar desert!")

<lol>

Well, whatever it is in their language, yes, the name of
the planet and the people is the same. :)

[Disneygeek]

Post by Azaliah
On 2 Nov 2006 10:41:00 -0800, while bungee jumping,

Post by Disneygeek

Post by Azaliah
On 2 Nov 2006 06:29:51 -0800, while bungee jumping, "Ed"

Post by Ed
I've been watching Star Trek again and something struck me.
You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

Yes. Everyone knows that Vulcan has always been
an English speaking planet. :)

What started me on this was a sequence in the novelazation of
"Yesteryear" (Also known as "Mr. Spock's Time Trek.") A scene I don't
remember in the actual animated episode has Sarek talking to young
Spock and saying (paraphrasing) "Soon it will be time for you to take
your test on Vulcan's Forge, as the humans have so colorfully renamed
our S'hon a Shar desert!")

<lol>
Well, whatever it is in their language, yes, the name of
the planet and the people is the same. :)

Think about that for a second. A hot arrid planet, in its own language,
just happens to translate to "Vulcan," the god of the forge?

[Howard Brazee]

Post by Ed
You have Sarek, Spock and T-Pau all referring to their planet <and>
each other as "Vulcan." Was this actually the name of the planet and
its people before they contacted humans?

What language were they speaking?

[rick++]

The current planet huntiing methodology only observes monster,
speedy planets, perhaps only one percent of what exists.

("Fart of the Kook" is a prolific nut case in many newsgroups.)

[Cruithne3753]

Post by rick++
The current planet huntiing methodology only observes monster,
speedy planets, perhaps only one percent of what exists.
("Fart of the Kook" is a prolific nut case in many newsgroups.)

Well I sort of see it as "Sound of Trumpet" = "farting noise"

[Father Haskell]

Post by Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts
Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]

That's not what genesis says. See you in hell with the rest of the
evolutionists, heretic.

[w***@Phreaker.net]

Post by Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1717285/posts
Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars [
Epsilon Eridani b ]

[...]

Post by Sound of Trumpet
Epsilon Eridani has long captivated the attention of science fiction
writers, as well as astronomers. In 1960, years before the first
extrasolar planet was detected, astronomer Frank Drake listened for
radio transmissions from inhabitants of any possible planets around
Epsilon Eridani as part of Project Ozma's search for intelligent
extraterrestrial life. In the fictional "Star Trek" universe, Epsilon
Eridani is considered by some fans to be the parent star for the planet
Vulcan, Mr. Spock's home.
No Vulcan or any other alien could live on this gas giant planet.

Indeed. There is no planet Vulcan, and in the time when Jesus was
supposed to live, there was no town of Nazareth.


No such planet as Vulcan = no Spock.

No such town as Nazareth = no Jesus.


Or perhaps ... in the first century, on the place of today's Nazareth
was a GRAVEYARD - maybe Jesus and his family were zombies - or ghouls -
or perhaps even VAMPIRES! This would explain the thing with drinking
blood and "eternal life" :-)))



http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html


Nazareth -The Town that Theology Built


The Lost City

The Gospels tell us that Jesus's home town was the 'City of Nazareth'
('polis Natzoree'):


And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a
CITY of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose
name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was
Mary.
(Luke1.26,27)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph
also went up from Galilee, out of the CITY of Nazareth, into Judaea,
unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of
the house and lineage of David:
(Luke 2.3,4)

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of
his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being
warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
And he came and dwelt in a CITY called Nazareth: that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a
Nazarene.
(Matthew 2.22,23)

And when they had performed all things according to the law of the
Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own CITY Nazareth. And the
child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the
grace of God was upon him.
(Luke 2.39,40)


The gospels do not tell us much about this 'city' - it has a
synagogue, it can scare up a hostile crowd (prompting JC's famous
"prophet rejected in his own land" quote), and it has a precipice -
but the city status of Nazareth is clearly established, at least
according to that source of nonsense called the Bible.

However when we look for historical confirmation of this hometown of a
god - surprise, surprise! - no other source confirms that the place
even existed in the 1st century AD.

� Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old
Testament. The Book of Joshua (19.10,16) - in what it claims is the
process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area - records
twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its
list.

� The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing
of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

� St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles
(real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

� No ancient historian or geographer mentions Nazareth. It is
first noted at the beginning of the 4th century.


None of this would matter of course if, rather like at the nearby
'pagan' city of Sepphoris, we could stroll through the ruins of 1st
century bath houses, villas, theatres etc. Yet no such ruins exist.

[...]

Excavations conducted by Father Bellarmino Bagatti (Professor, Studium
Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem). Beneath his own
church and adjoining land, Bagatti discovered numerous caves and
hollows. Some of these caves have obviously had a great deal of use,
over many centuries. Most are tombs, many from the Bronze Age. Others
have been adapted for use as water cisterns, as vats for oil or as
'silos' for grain. Apparently, there were indications that Nazareth had
been 'refounded' in Hasmonean times after a long period when the area
had been deserted. Yet overwhelmingly, archaeological evidence from
before the second century is funerary. Obliged to admit a dearth of
suitable evidence of habitation, none the less, Bagatti was able
conclude that 1st century AD Nazareth had been 'a small agricultural
village settled by a few dozen families.'

With a great leap of faith the partisan diggers declared what they had
found was 'the village of Jesus, Mary & Joseph' - though they had not
found a village at all, and certainly no evidence of particular
individuals. The finds were consistent, in fact, with isolated
horticultural activity, close to a necropolis of long-usage.

Rather conveniently for the Catholic Church, questionable graffiti also
indicated that the shrine was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, no less!

Yet one point is inescapable: the Jewish disposition towards the
'uncleanliness' of the dead. The Jews, according to their customs,
would not build a village in the immediate vicinity of tombs and vice
versa. Tombs would have to be outside any village.

[Al Klein]

Post by w***@Phreaker.net
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
Nazareth -The Town that Theology Built
The Lost City
The Gospels tell us that Jesus's home town was the 'City of Nazareth'

And there's the whole problem. 'City of Nazorites' was mistranslated
into 'City of Nazareth'. 'Nazorite' (or 'Nazarite') has nothing to do
with a city named Nazareth.

Numbers 6:13-21

[Eris]

Post by Al Klein

Post by w***@Phreaker.net
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
Nazareth -The Town that Theology Built
The Lost City
The Gospels tell us that Jesus's home town was the 'City of Nazareth'

And there's the whole problem. 'City of Nazorites' was mistranslated
into 'City of Nazareth'. 'Nazorite' (or 'Nazarite') has nothing to do
with a city named Nazareth.
Numbers 6:13-21

Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

[Tak a#344]

Post by Eris
Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

Don't blink or the Catholics will write that part in too.

[Eris]

On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:03:36 -0600, Tak a#344

Post by Tak a#344

Post by Eris
Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

Don't blink or the Catholics will write that part in too.

Yes one of the translations Jesus and Josepheus would lunch together.

[Al Klein]

Post by Eris
On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:03:36 -0600, Tak a#344

Post by Tak a#344

Post by Eris
Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

Don't blink or the Catholics will write that part in too.

Yes one of the translations Jesus and Josepheus would lunch together.

It's another miracle, either Jesus having lunch after he died or
Josephus having lunch before he was born.

[Eris]

Post by Al Klein

Post by Eris
On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:03:36 -0600, Tak a#344

Post by Tak a#344

Post by Eris
Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

Don't blink or the Catholics will write that part in too.

Yes one of the translations Jesus and Josepheus would lunch together.

It's another miracle, either Jesus having lunch after he died or
Josephus having lunch before he was born.

Praise Jesus

[Al Klein]

Post by Eris

Post by Al Klein

Post by w***@Phreaker.net
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
Nazareth -The Town that Theology Built
The Lost City
The Gospels tell us that Jesus's home town was the 'City of Nazareth'

And there's the whole problem. 'City of Nazorites' was mistranslated
into 'City of Nazareth'. 'Nazorite' (or 'Nazarite') has nothing to do
with a city named Nazareth.
Numbers 6:13-21

Funny that Josepheus lived one mile from the alleged town of Nazareth
or Nazarite and never mentioned it in any of his writings.

Well, you know, he wasn't all that brilliant a man. He lived a short
walk from all those people who had known Jebus before he played
pincushion, and ole Joe never thought to interview any of them. Maybe
because he was long dead before anyone came up with the idea of this
savior guy walking around raising the lame and healing the dead?
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"Does it ever amaze anyone else how little faith some heterosexuals have
in heterosexuality? It's supposed to be this god-given human instinct
that only the warped and perverted ever stray from; but, it seems, if we
once tell our straight children a message even as mild as "some people
are gay, and that's all right," that'll be enough to send lil' Suzy into
the arms of women forever. It's a wonder the race has survived this
long, really..."
- ***@deimos.ucs.umass.edu Charles M Seaton (21 Dec 1994)
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)