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Universally Speaking, Earthlings Share a Nice Neighborhood
August 11, 2008We don't have spacecraft to take us outside our solar system--not yet, at least. Still, astronomers thought they had a pretty good understanding of how our solar system formed and in turn, how others formed. In the last dozen years, nearly 300 exoplanets have been discovered. Are the solar systems in which they reside indeed like our own? Without knowledge or observations to the contrary, conventional knowledge said yes. Three Northwestern University researchers questioned that assumption and explored this question. What they learned is that the solar system in which the Earth orbits our sun is actually uncommon.
Edward Thommes, Soko Matsumura and Frederic Rasio were the first to develop large-scale, sophisticated computer simulations to model the formation of planetary systems from beginning to end. Because of computing limitations, earlier models provided only brief glimpses of the process. The surprising findings of their study titled, "Gas Disks to Gas Giants: Simulating the Birth of Planetary Systems," are detailed in the August 8, 2008 issue of Science magazine.
The researchers used a range of computer simulations to explore the formation of extra-solar planetary systems. They were able to show the action of a planet-forming circumstellar disk in three different starting condition scenarios at different intervals from the beginning of the universe to 500 million years of evolution. They found that our solar system represents the rare case in which big gas giants form, but do not migrate to the inner planetary system, and the orbits of all of the planets in the system are circular and stable.
"We now know that these other planetary systems don't look like the solar system at all," said Frederic A. Rasio, senior author of the Science paper, and a theoretical astrophysicist and professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. "We now better understand the process of planet formation and can explain the properties of the strange exoplanets we've observed. We also know that the solar system is special and understand at some level what makes it special."
The computer simulations were performed on a supercomputing cluster operated by Northwestern's Theoretical Astrophysics Group and partially funded by a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Rasio's research group on exoplanets also is funded by a grant from the NSF Division of Astronomy.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
"We now know that these other planetary systems don't look like the solar system at all," said Frederic A. Rasio, senior author of the Science paper, and a theoretical astrophysicist and professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. "We now better understand the process of planet formation and can explain the properties of the strange exoplanets we've observed. We also know that the solar system is special and understand at some level what makes it special."
The computer simulations were performed on a supercomputing cluster operated by Northwestern's Theoretical Astrophysics Group and partially funded by a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Rasio's research group on exoplanets also is funded by a grant from the NSF Division of Astronomy.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
Solar System Current Events and Solar System News RSSScientists Discover New Planet Orbiting Dangerously Close to Giant Star
A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much older than our own Sun.
MIT researchers find clues to planets' birth
Meteorites that are among the oldest rocks ever found have provided new clues about the conditions that existed at the beginning of the solar system, solving a longstanding mystery and overturning some accepted ideas about the way planets form.
Solar System's Young Twin Has Two Asteroid Belts
Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three rings of material implies that unseen planets confine and shape them.
Secrets from within planets pave way for cleaner energy
Research that has provided a deeper understanding into the centre of planets could also provide the way forward in the world's quest for cleaner energy.
New comet discovered in Canada
Rob Cardinal was looking for an asteroid, but ended up finding a comet. It is the first time a comet has been discovered at the University of Calgary's Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, which is located about 35 kilometres southwest of Calgary, and only the second Canadian discovery of a comet using a Canadian telescope in nearly a decade.
NASA Supercomputer Shows How Dust Rings Point to Exo-Earths
Supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sunlike stars show that planets nearly as small as Mars can create patterns that future telescopes may be able to detect. The research points to a new avenue in the search for habitable planets.
NASA spacecraft ready to explore outer solar system
The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. The two-year mission will begin from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Cassini flyby of Saturn moon offers insight into solar system history
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to fly within 16 miles of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Oct. 9 and measure molecules in its space environment that could give insight into the history of the solar system.
Worlds in collision
Two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision, astronomers at UCLA, Tennessee State University and the California Institute of Technology will report in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal of astronomy and astrophysics.
Immigrant Sun: Our star could be far from where it started in Milky Way
A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed. Some astrophysicists have recently questioned whether that is true, and now new simulations show that, at least in galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, stars such as the sun can migrate great distances.
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