Space Porn: The Years Go Really Fast, On A Doomed Planet

The Years Go Really Fast, On A Doomed Planet

Here's a computer-generated image of TrES-3, a planet which is slowly falling into its sun. A year on the planet, in the Hercules constellation, lasts only 31 hours because its orbit is so small. Twice the size of Jupiter, the planet might already be toasted if its sun wasn't smaller and cooler than our own. It occasionally passes right in front of the sun that will soon kill it, and then it's visible to amateur astronomers — like it was this week. Astronomers from the Trans-atlantic Exo-Planet Survey (TrES) discovered the suicidal world a year ago. Want to see a picture of it preparing to plunge into the sun?

[TrES]
[Space Weather]

4:15 PM on Fri May 9 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
2,852 views
13 comments

Comments

Zantor at 04:30 PM on 05/09/08
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POOF!
amorphous at 04:39 PM on 05/09/08
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On the plus side, if I lived on that planet I could expect to live to the ripe age of 22,622 years old.
choinski at 04:39 PM on 05/09/08
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If by picture you mean 'artist rendering'
Grey_Area at 06:11 PM on 05/09/08
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Let's name this planet "Moth".
twophrasebark at 06:44 PM on 05/09/08
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CHEKOV

You lie! On TrES-3 there was life, a fair chance -

KHAN

THIS is TrES-3. TrES-4 exploded six months after
we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of
this planet and everything was laid waste. Admiral
Kirk never bothered to check on our progress.

It was only the fact of my genetically engineered
intellect that enabled us to survive!
jrcortez at 08:37 PM on 05/09/08
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Talk about global warming.
codydog at 09:34 PM on 05/09/08
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I do wonder how long they will find a habitual planet. Another order of magnitude of resolution ought to do it, yes?
Jim (The Canuck One) at 02:25 AM on 05/10/08
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@twophrasebark:
CHECKOV

(under breath) Drama queen.
Pasketti at 06:07 AM on 05/10/08
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@codydog: Being a planet is a hard habit to break.
icelight at 11:08 AM on 05/10/08
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@codydog: Another 5 years almost certainly will do it. That's the time it will take to launch the Kepler mission and give it enough time to collect its data. By then, they expect somewhere on the order of a few hundred Earth sized worlds at the right distance from their home stars to be in the habitable zone. Confirmation, i.e. and oxidizing atmosphere, may indeed take significantly more resolution, as you say, but there are projects in place for that too.
pinkiedeathhead at 05:11 PM on 05/10/08
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God I love the weird sh** just lurking about in the universe!
brentbent at 03:33 AM on 05/11/08
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To quote Simon, son of Killface from Frisky Dingo, "Boosh!"

For those of you unfamiliar with Frisky Dingo, arch-villian Killface builds the Annihilatrix, a massive set of rocket engines jutting out of a parking lot, to push the Earth into the Sun. If you're a fan of the super hero genre being turned upside down and bitch smacked this [adult swim] toon is for you!
beercheck at 08:20 AM
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Connectedness Index: 133

Hey now. No sun is cooler than our sun, sister.