Pleased to meet you …

Are Extrasolar planetary astronomers helping cause the slide of the American Housing market, and a possible economic Recession? 

Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that an Extrasolar Planet (that is, a planet that orbits a star other than out Sun) has organic methane in its atmosphere, is Marc Kaufman’s article in the Washington Post regarding efforts to locate Earthlike worlds.

Kaufmann writes, “This explosion in planetary discoveries is taking place at such warp speed that even those most intimately involved are often amazed — especially because their ultimate goal is nothing less than finding life elsewhere in the universe.”

While this may be nominally true, there is an unforeseen side effect: Those scientists are also finding more Real Estate, and some of it could be more desirable than what’s currently available here. Certainly, there are tax advantages to properties that are not governed by the Bush Administration or any of the current US state or municipal legislatures, much less by the laws of physics as we understand them.

With the housing market in a slump, glutted with available properties that are losing value by the minute, the last thing Realtors want to hear is that there are 277 confirmed Extrasolar planets coming on the market and available for development, with more being located every week it seems. And for the moment, these properties don’t have any Climate Change or Global Warming issues that they need to disclose to any potential home buyers either, which should increase profitability for Extrasolar beachfront properties (yes, we do know some of these planets have water). Expolanet HD 189733b appears to be quite close to its star, and rather warm - in the neighborhood of 1700 deg. F. - which your typical Realtor might describe as “ready for year-round beachgoing, and a perfect retirement location.”

The detection of methane in the atmosphere of property, er, planet HD 189733b has scientists quite excited at the moment, more so than the detection of water vapor in that planet’s atmosphere last year, it seems. Is it an indicator of exotic atmospheric chemistry, or perhaps an indicator that there may be some sort of ongoing long-term organic processes on that planet already?

Perhaps that methane is an indicator that there’s an Alien Retirement Community set up there already (remember, In Space, no one can hear you fart), and that we can save the name “New Florida” for some other hellishly hot, humid, methane-rich Real Estate.

Remember to ask your Realtor for “New Florida” by name, and to inquire soon, before prices - and mortgage loan rates - start going back up. When this planet gets too hot and too crowded, everyone’s going to be looking for some secluded Real Estate on the cheap to build a retirement home. Don’t wait until the last minute.

Besides, it’s going to take at least 63 years just to get there. And that’s a *long* ride in a Realtor’s car when they take you to visit.

bc

Copyright by the author 2008, all rights reserved.

Well, the International Astronomical Union has gone ahead and wiped out the American planet Pluto as we warned earlier, securing the passage of Resolutions 5 and 6 at the 2006 IAU International Congress to unleash their dastardly French Science-Based Document (SBD) press release, all that’s left out there is a cloud of “plutons” and an empty parking lot for the New Horizons spacecraft.

In the effort to get the innocuously named Resolution 5A passed there is some odd language used (French?):

“(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the
Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body
forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit,
and (d) is not a satellite.”

Item C was obviously a swipe at Pluto, which crosses inside the orbit of Neptune during it’s trip around the sun.

Here’s where things get weird for me: There are many diverse “mass challenged” (a more PC term than “dwarf planets”, I should think) objects - comets, asteroids, rocks, chunks of ice, etc.- that orbit the Sun and also cross the orbits of just about every one of the “classical” planets, some at significant inclinations to the plane of the ecliptic, some right along the ecliptic. They go about their business in the Solar System as is their right under the Laws.

If every “classical” planet’s orbit is intersected by the orbit of other objects going ’round the Sun, how do they determine that the “neighbourhood” is clear? I didn’t see a formula for determining an acceptable orbital neighborhood; is there some Homeowner’s Association to check out the orbit and make sure there aren’t any Undesirables going in or out of the area? Whoops, here comes a comet, there goes the neighbourhood! Someone call 911!

Based on that bit of logic, one could make a case for getting rid of all the planets altogether, based on unacceptable orbital association, and evidence from the local Neighbourhood Watch busybodies.

Unless someone wants to make the mineral- and chemical-rich Inner Eight area a gated community, that is.

And if they do, I won’t be there. Segregation and apartheid have no place in this Solar System, and I’ll restate my feelings regarding the treatment of all bodies orbiting the Sun:

“Instead of waiting until there are insurmountable problems accommodating them [the mass-challenged trans-Neptunian opjects], let’s offer them a chance to become legitimate and equal objects to those we learned about in Elementary school.

And let’s give them ALL names and official status.

Just as we teach our children about the history of our country and our world but don’t make them learn the name of every citizen in the phonebook, we can teach them about the first “wanderers” humans observed in the heavens, and perhaps write some new chapters about planets called Pluto, Xena, and others. Chapters about equality and perseverance and basic rights of all those orbiting this medium-sized yellow main sequence star.

No matter what star you formed around, what part of an accretion disk you came from, what your albedo is, what your mass is, or what your natural resources are, we all have something of value to contribute to the Solar System.” [You can read the entire text of this item here.]

Perhaps the better answer is simple: In the name of Equal Rights for All Under the Sun, no more “planets”.

Thanks, IAU.

© Copyright by the author 2006, all rights reserved.

We wrote last week about the threat posed by the International Astronomical Union’s French-based Science-Based Documents (SBDs) to the planet Pluto, and mentioned some of the back-door diplomacy that the Arbusto Administration was using to try to defuse the situation, with a proposal based on one we had made some months back.

Despite much bearing down by the Bush Administration on the volatile situation, the IAU appears to have built up enough International pressure to pass the measure, and unleash a volley of planet-busting SBDs as early as tomorrow (August 24th, 2006).

But there are several nebulous proposals floating over the IAU Conference in Prague that could potentially comprise an SBD at a level capable of blowing Pluto to plutons.

The seat of the matter appears to be a disagreement over, of all things, gas.

There are fairly well thought-out standards in regard to planetary size and orbit, but there has been a bit of a blowout over a requirement that a planet be able to retain a gaseous envelope around it, namely, an atmosphere. We are astonished at the very idea that a body’s ability to emit and/or retain gases could be what separates planets from acceptance or reduction to who-knows-what.

For example, a body that meets the physical requirements of a planet but has all of its atmospheric resources frozen solid in the dark wastes many AU from Sol would not be a planet, even though if it happened to suddenly be moved closer to the Sun it would burst forth with an explosion of chemical effervescence and ferment in its own brumousness.

This latest threatened IAU SBD now not only threatens Pluto, but possibly Mercury as well.

We will help keep you on top of this potentially explosive SBD situation, and its foul repercussions.

bc

© Copyright by the author 2006, all rights reserved.

Updated, August 24, 2006 10:27 AM 

It seems that the International Astronomer’s Union finally wiped out the planet Pluto, like the Death Star wiping out Princess Leia’s homeworld of Alderaan in “Star Wars”. We hope that Grand Moff Ron Ekers of the IAU is happy with the Committee’s decision.

Think of the textbooks, the science fair models, the web sites, the encyclopedias, the NASA press and public materials, and most importantly of all, the CHILDREN. All of it wiped out by a simple show of hands in a committee meeting.

Is it too late to turn the New Horizons spacecraft around? After all, New Horizons was originally a mission to a planet, and now that planet’s gone before the spacecraft has even gotten to the gravity assist at Jupiter. The scientists working on that mission must be looking at each other and asking, “Now what do we do? We’ve got nine years to figure out how to approach a…whatever it is. I wonder if this is going to affect our funding?”

We shudder to think of what the IAU will turn their destructive powers to next. But we’re sure they’ll think of something.

We originally posted the below in April of this year, but we think it’s worth rerunning.

bc

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I was perusing Robert Roy Britt’s “Demote Pluto and Kill Xena” blog item on Livescience.com, and frankly, I was a bit put off by it. Britt suggests that some bodies orbiting the sun are relatively insignificant compared to others. He goes further by suggesting that ”science” should have a logical, utterly certain process to decide what objects have official “planet” status, and not the people that constitute our “culture”.

Didn’t the Quantum Mechanics revolution of the early 20th century establish the importance of the Observer, of people, in determining the nature of reality?

I take umbrage at the idea that these immigrant “planlets” are somehow less important and less deserving of names than the older, larger and more established “planets” and moons in the Solar System. I also think it is offensive to refer to them as “lesser” or “dwarf” planets. The term “mass-challenged” is more appropriate.

Just because these objects may have come from an accretion disk other than Sol’s doesn’t mean that they don’t have rights, too. The large gaseous and rocky inner “planets” and their satellites were fortunate enough to have been born rich with natural resources and close to this sun, but in the scheme of things, are they any more important to the Universe than their cousins out in the Kupier belt, off of the ecliptic, or out in the Oort?

There are certainly open questions regarding exactly how these objects came to orbit Sol, but the fact is that they are here now, filling legitimate niches in the outer solar system;  niches that the well-known resource-rich Inner System “planets”, their moons (and their inhabitants), deign not to fill. 

The time has come for us to stop pretending that these huddled masses are not in our Solar System. They’re here, they’re abiding by the physical laws that apply to all, and they’re contributing to the general welfare. We’ve ignored their presence politically, barely categorizing their existence with the IAU, while enjoying the fruits of their orbital mechanics to make the inner system a stable and relatively impact-free environment.

Frankly, that’s just not fair.

Instead of waiting until there are insurmountable problems accommodating them, let’s offer them a chance to become legitimate and equal objects to those we learned about in Elementary school.

And let’s give them ALL names and official status.

Just as we teach our children about the history of our country and our world but don’t make them learn the name of every citizen in the phonebook, we can teach then about the first “wanderers” humans observed in the heavens, and perhaps write some new chapters about planets called Pluto, Xena, and others. Chapters about equality and perseverance and basic rights of all those orbiting this medium-sized yellow main sequence star.

No matter what star you formed around, what part of an accretion disk you came from, what your albedo is, what your mass is, or what your natural resources are, we all have something of value to contribute to the Solar System.

Starting with a legitimate name.

bc