Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit(quantamagazine.org)
quantamagazine.org
Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
https://www.quantamagazine.org/rogue-worlds-throw-planetary-ideas-out-of-orbit-20231113/
26 comments
But why? It's much easier and cheaper to just leech off a star for energy. Your theory also doesn't explain why "most intelligent life" would choose that approach rather than only a subset, with the rest staying around stars like normal.
My original comment was just off the top of my head, so I don't hvae any particularly good reasons, but I do have some hypothetical ones - again, off the top of my head:
- Because they're aliens, with different modes of thought! (But that's not very satisfying.)
- Maybe they're long-lived enough and live slowly enough to consider stars more of a hazard than a useful resource to live next to - those things go nova, put out lots of dangerous radiation and flares, many of them turn into gas giants and incinerate any nearby planets, and they attract others to the neighborhood. Maybe it's better to live a quiet, hard-to-detect life, slowly cruising through galactic space.
- Maybe that's the environment they originally evolved in, and living near a star would be as alien and uncomfortable for them as living on a gas giant slowly floating through space would be for us.
- Because they're aliens, with different modes of thought! (But that's not very satisfying.)
- Maybe they're long-lived enough and live slowly enough to consider stars more of a hazard than a useful resource to live next to - those things go nova, put out lots of dangerous radiation and flares, many of them turn into gas giants and incinerate any nearby planets, and they attract others to the neighborhood. Maybe it's better to live a quiet, hard-to-detect life, slowly cruising through galactic space.
- Maybe that's the environment they originally evolved in, and living near a star would be as alien and uncomfortable for them as living on a gas giant slowly floating through space would be for us.
Those who got their gas giants on a ride are maybe escaping their sun exploding?
Occams razor: the simpler explanation.
A majority of star systems (iirc) are binary star systems.
Why wouldn't failed stars / rogue planets similarly follow that pattern?
A majority of star systems (iirc) are binary star systems.
Why wouldn't failed stars / rogue planets similarly follow that pattern?
Because Occam's razor works but has to work with the actual mechanics of how stuff is formed and processes evolve and not necessarily just by observing the end result
I personally don't think this is very likely (main question: how do they actually manage to get those planets paired and ejected in the first place??? The energy requirements are quite literally astronomical) but it is a very cool idea.
Would make a great novel.
Would make a great novel.
Single gas giant & moons would easier - see how it keeps Io and possibly other moons warm. :)
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If there are that many Jupiter+ sized objects then how many rocky planet sized ones are there? Would they even be detectable via infrared or gravitational lensing?
Not many. Gas giants can form on their own, they have composition similar to interstellar material (mostly hydrogen and helium).
Rocky planets can only form in proto disks around newly forming stars. Heavier materials (carbon and up) are concentrated this way.
Rocky planets can only form in proto disks around newly forming stars. Heavier materials (carbon and up) are concentrated this way.
Well, that entirely depends on if the theory and models being used are correct. This article seems to indicate that many of those beliefs did not match reality. I think we should keep looking rather than discount out of hand. There are more things in heaven and earth, after all.
I had a thought a while back about interstellar flight:
If there are a lot of massive objects out there (rogue planets, maybe primordial black holes) then these could be used to aid acceleration and deceleration through gravity assist and the Oberth effect. (The latter describes how you get more acceleration thrusting near a massive body.)
You could fly along with an ultra sensitive gravity telescope / sensor and hop between massive objects.
You could also perhaps harvest propellant from some of these.
Long duration interstellar flight would be easier if the space between solar systems was not as empty as we think.
If there are a lot of massive objects out there (rogue planets, maybe primordial black holes) then these could be used to aid acceleration and deceleration through gravity assist and the Oberth effect. (The latter describes how you get more acceleration thrusting near a massive body.)
You could fly along with an ultra sensitive gravity telescope / sensor and hop between massive objects.
You could also perhaps harvest propellant from some of these.
Long duration interstellar flight would be easier if the space between solar systems was not as empty as we think.
I think gravity assists only really make sense when you're talking about orbits - a solitary object floating through the void won't help you accelerate, though it can help you make a cheaper "turn" in space.
Doesn’t the Oberth effect still work?
Actually, hm, I don't know. If you're approaching a mass in space, and firing your engine close to it - do you end up with a faster relative velocity than if you'd just fired your engines for the same amount of time in empty space?
edit: I did the most basic possible amount of research by reading the first paragraph of the wikipedia article (can we call that a milliHbomberguy?), and you're right, you do gain more velocity than just firing your engine in space. Although it puts a limit on where you'll be going after your approach.
edit: I did the most basic possible amount of research by reading the first paragraph of the wikipedia article (can we call that a milliHbomberguy?), and you're right, you do gain more velocity than just firing your engine in space. Although it puts a limit on where you'll be going after your approach.
The Oberth effect is fascinating. It sounds like a violation of conservation of energy but it’s not. You can get multiples of thrust.
An Oberth effect flyby of a primordial black hole with a high impulse drive like nuclear pulse propulsion would be pretty spicy. It’s a feasible way to achieve speeds close to the speed of light. Acceleration would kill you though.
If we did find such an object anywhere within a few light years of the sun it would be a way to send probes out at significant fractions of the speed of light.
An Oberth effect flyby of a primordial black hole with a high impulse drive like nuclear pulse propulsion would be pretty spicy. It’s a feasible way to achieve speeds close to the speed of light. Acceleration would kill you though.
If we did find such an object anywhere within a few light years of the sun it would be a way to send probes out at significant fractions of the speed of light.
Interstellar travel is only going to work if we're using much more powerful propulsion techniques than we currently are. I don't think gravity assists will help much in that case. I still think it's a boon to have a lot of interstellar bodies though, they are certainly easier to reach than the nearest stars and they could be just as interesting. Who knows what kind of weird, icy worlds might exist out there heated only by radioactive isotopes and tidal forces?
Haha, I love uncensored quotes from scientists.
> “We know there’s a whole bunch of crap between stars,” Raymond said
> “We know there’s a whole bunch of crap between stars,” Raymond said
Maybe the actual sentient life in universe lives deep within those rogue worlds. It is also trivial for them to hop worlds - either wait for a flyby or put nuclear reactor on a blob of ices and drive away. They use stars as beacons and can't imagine anyone willing to live directly in the bonfire.
If they are using laser communication, our Sun will likely drown any signals in noise.
If they are using laser communication, our Sun will likely drown any signals in noise.
> It is also trivial for them to hop worlds - either wait for a flyby
How so? The gravity well of a gas/ice giant would be absolutely massive. Even if you could get away from the planet, waiting for a flyby in interstellar space could well take millions of years between encounters.
How so? The gravity well of a gas/ice giant would be absolutely massive. Even if you could get away from the planet, waiting for a flyby in interstellar space could well take millions of years between encounters.
"Deep within" gas giants, physics gets incredibly weird due to the pressures involved. Life arising on a moon seems more likely to me.
I was thinking more of tectonically active ice giants with large oceans under the ice shield. To explore space, you will have to drill your way out first.
I think you're thinking of ice moons, not ice giants.
It's a neat possibility for a science fiction author. I've seen the idea used a couple of times.
One of the key questions for life is where all the external energy to overcome entropy comes from. Being close to a star without being fried by it is a good way to accomplish this, but there are fewer easy energy sources on a rogue planet.
One of the key questions for life is where all the external energy to overcome entropy comes from. Being close to a star without being fried by it is a good way to accomplish this, but there are fewer easy energy sources on a rogue planet.
There's a couple of options; the most obvious one is radiothermal heating from radioactive elements in the core, or even just remnant heat from the core slowly working its way up. And if there are pairs of these, then their orbits might be keeping their cores moving and warm due to tides.
> Rather than answering this question, the JWST observation adds to the mystery: The telescope’s infrared eye found that dozens of the worlds appear to be in pairs orbiting each other — a puzzling arrangement that, if confirmed, would defy expectations.
> “We’re missing something,” said Nienke van der Marel, a researcher who studies planet formation at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, “and we don’t know what it is.”
> These improbable duos cannot be easily explained by any known formation theories of either stars or free-floating planets. But within a week of the JWST announcement, researchers published a daring new idea describing how giant planets might be ejected from their home system in pairs — an event most researchers had thought all but impossible. Whether or not the proposal can fully account for the entire zoo of dim, starless worlds remains to be seen.
Here's my scifi take on things: these pairworlds are engineered.
The whole "the galaxy should be settled by now" question has an answer: the galaxy is settled, but the people living there don't care to live close to suns - they prefer to live in planetary binaries sailing through the interstellar void, using the gravitational energy of the orbit to keep the cores of the planets in flux, generating internal heat for energy.
My understanding from the article is that these are mostly gas-giant, Jupiter-like pairs - so maybe these creatures live in those types of planets' atmospheres, and have developed the technology to pair up gas giant worlds and go traveling.
Maybe that's how most sentient life does it! Maybe we're half a million years away from our local Gas Giant Natives packing up their shit (Jupiter & Saturn, Neptune & Uranus) and fucking off to join the greater galactic community, leaving us in the dust to be clobbered by asteroids and other orbital disasters.