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Comments on: UK boffins ID three new exo-planets

The world is not enough 

Posted Wednesday 31st October 2007 12:38 GMT

Alert

Dammit - aren't the machines satisfied with overrunning this planet? Must they seek to conquer other worlds too?

WASP 

Posted Wednesday 31st October 2007 12:55 GMT

I always thought WASP stood for "World Aquanaut Security Patrol"

PH? 

Posted Wednesday 31st October 2007 14:05 GMT

Paris Hilton

Paris can't live there, so what's the point?

Just a sec 

Posted Wednesday 31st October 2007 15:08 GMT

"All are gas giants, roughly the size of Jupiter" ... "the surface temperatures are likely to be approaching 2,000°C". Hotter than Paris, alright.

So we're talking about hydrostatically stable (gas) plasmoids with an orbital period of "a matter of days" (wow, neat pun Lucy). Shurley shomething wrong shomewhere. Eye-watering facts, yet the "boffins" haven't blinked...?

Either our New Insect Overlords are over there and holding it all together with technology we can't understand, or they're over here and subverting explanations we can understand and aren't being let onto. Or both. I think we should be told, as we're paying.

Just a sec 

Posted Wednesday 31st October 2007 16:52 GMT

Jupiter's escape velocity - 60 km / s

Typical kinetic energy of a gas molecule - 3/2 k T

Temperature at which hydrogen molecules typically have speeds equal to escape velocity of Jupiter - about 30,000 deg C.

Lose a factor of a few because you might only be worried about the peak of the distribution of molecule speeds and you're still way over 2,000 deg C.

Yours truly,

Boffins

Just another sec 

Posted Friday 2nd November 2007 12:43 GMT

What makes you so certain the kinetic theory of gases is (a) valid here, (b) the explanation? I think we should be told, etc

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