Solar Sugar Daddy

What’s your favorite thing about space? Mine is space. ~Space Core, Portal 2

So, my galleons, when you think of space, I bet the first thing that pops into your mind isn’t sugar. And yet, a rather exciting find from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility with just the most bitchin’ radio telescope array this side of anywhere, deals precisely with those winsome little carbohydrates.

Now, space sugars have been detected before, but what makes this particular sugar spotting so special is where it’s located. Glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar, has been found in the gas surrounding a young binary star (which is of similar mass to Sol herself), called IRAS 16293-2422. The gas cloud isn’t just hanging right up there, breathing down the star’s metaphorical neck, but hanging out about the distance of Uranus from our own sun. So, in astronomical terms… yeah, the cloud’s a clingy little creeper. And it’s that same proximity to the star that makes this particular batch of space sugar so intriguing, because it means that the sugar’s been in the system since the planets were formed.

You know what this means, right? It means sugar, containing little ol’ carbons and hydrogens and oxygens, have been hanging around this system during planet formation. As Jes Jørgensen of Denmark’s Niels Bohr Institute states:

This molecule is one of the ingredients in the formation of RNA, which — like DNA, to which it is related — is one of the building blocks of life.

The building blocks of life being seeded to these freshly developing worlds. Are you all atingle as well, dear galleons?

And not only has the sugar been hanging out in this system all along, it’s actually falling in toward the star, giving them an even higher chance of ending up on the newly formed planets.

It’s one of the first finds from ALMA, which technically isn’t complete yet- it’s in the verification phase where observations by the telescope array are being checked to make sure they meet the high quality standard expected of the project. ALMA is scheduled to be complete and fully operational in 2013, so this is just the start of its journey into the inner workings of star and star system formation. Its unparalleled sensitivity (due, in large part, to the sheer number of telescopes hooked up in the installation- 66, for the curious) will allow it to study details of gas and dust discs within star systems previously unavailable to us. So for one of its first real discoveries to be this sugar is pretty spectacular. It appears that ALMA is going to be able to give us incredible information about how planetary systems form and, perhaps, about how life could (and did, at least once) arise within them.

The team plans to keep an eye on the sugars in the IRAS 16293-2422 system. As Jørgensen said:

A big question is: how complex can these molecules become before they are incorporated into new planets? This could tell us something about how life might arise elsewhere, and ALMA observations are going to be vital to unravel this mystery.

I mean, unraveling the mysteries of the universe? This is what science is all about. Good job, ALMA.

Wanted: New Planet. Must Have No Current Stellar Ties, a Willingness to Lurk on the Outskirts of a System, and Possess Devilish Charm and Appeal

So imagine, if you will, a star. Just speeding through space, like stars do. Shades on, listening to its stellar iPod (…I feel there’s a music of the spheres joke in there somewhere, but it would take a sharper wit than mine to make it happen). You know, a typical cruise through the universe.

When lo, by the side of the hyperspace bypass (sorry, Arthur Dent), there’s a figure. Dark. Mysterious. The star is intrigued, so it offers the stranger a lift.

Galleons, that star has just picked up a space rogue.

No, not a sexy space rogue. A rogue planet.

How does a planet become a rogue? Well, as a star system is forming, the matter surrounding the star often interacts. This is usually the cause of craters and planet-shattering in world formation, but sometimes, when two planets interact, one can be tossed out of the system completely.

And then it goes rogue, roaming the star cluster alone, free from the pull of a mother star.

However, a rogue planet can be picked up by a passing star going the same direction and speed. Even when in a star system again, however, the rogue planet remains a little wonky. It hangs back from the other planets in an extremely far orbit, which is often tilted. It may even revolve backward, just to fuck with everyone.

Or, at least, that’s what we theorize. See, we’ve never seen one of these rogue planets in a star system. Or, at least, we can’t definitively say we have. Because interactions between planets within a star system can cause wide, irregular orbits, giving us a slew of imposters to wade through.

However, there is a piece of evidence that points to the idea that rogue planets can be picked up and tacked onto existing star systems. And that piece of evidence is a double-planet system.

Now, hold up. It isn’t what you think. This isn’t two planets orbiting a single star… this is two planets, sans star, orbiting each other. Two rogue planets who found each other and formed their own little binary system. Like a little interstellar romance.

This double-planet system is the prime bit of evidence pointing toward rogue planet capture. And, while it is poetically sweet and scientifically interesting… is this lone binary system the only method we have of determining whether rogue planets can be captured again?

Of course not. But, as mentioned previously, it is difficult to separate real captured rogues from imposters (though exhaustive research of many, many star systems could give us a greater understanding of how to distinguish the two). A great piece of evidence would be to find a planet in a far orbit around a low-mass star. The star’s disk couldn’t have been large enough to form a planet that far out, so that distant planet would basically have to be a captured rogue.

According to recent research, the capture of rogue planets could be more common than one would think. Assuming there are as many rogue planets as there are stars (highly likely), then 3-6% of the stars would pick up a rogue over time. It would still be a rare event, but perhaps not as rare as we once believed. Particularly in young star clusters, where stars and rogue planets would be crowded into a smaller area (making pick-up interactions more likely).

Who knows- maybe one day, our own star will pull in a loner drifting through space. Then Sol would be back up to nine planets and could feel less shitty about itself (it still hasn’t recovered from the HD 10180 situation).

Bigger Fish in the Cosmic Sea or Suck It, Sol, You Lose the Solar System Dick-Measuring Contest

Fun Space Fact #1: Though we’ve found many a solar system out there beyond the edges of our dear Sol, many other stars surrounded by a whirling skirt of planets, all these systems have had far fewer planets than our own.

Fun Space Fact #2: That isn’t the case anymore.

That’s right. Out there, circling a star oh-so-cleverly named HD 10180, there are nine planets. Which breaks the current solar system planet record, a record which previously belonged to our 8-planet system.

In fact, it was previously believed that the HD 10180 system had a mere seven planets, but thanks to re-evaluation by the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), it seems ol’ HD 10180 has two more little planets hanging out with it.

I guess HD 10180 is the most popular girl in school, and Sol is yesterday’s news. Too bad, baby.

HD 10180 is about 130 light years from us, which scientists say is “not within reach of foreseeable human space travel,” but hell, 1 light year isn’t within reach of foreseeable human space travel, so what’s another 129 light years, eh? Still, in terms of space distances, that’s really not that far away. A few interstellar blocks, as it were.

So, I guess it’s like that quiet, bookish girl with the glasses and the ponytail who lives down the street from the hot cheerleader (and probably used to be best friends with her when they were young, before social pressures forced them apart, because that’s how the world works in crappy teen films) suddenly discovered contacts and makeup and a new hairstyle and is now the hottest girl in the school. And everyone wants to be her prom date and poor Sol is left a bleach-blonde, sniveling wreck without the crown or the quarterback boyfriend.

Still, Sol can at least lift her tear-streaked face up and spit on HD 10180 and haughtily declare that at least she has a life-sustaining planet, unlike that suddenly attractive hussy. HD 10180 might sport two super-Earth planets, but both of them have orbits that place them much closer to their sun than our own Earth is, making those super-Earths too hot to sustain liquid water (and, likely, life as we know it). And despite the fact that these super-Earths are larger than our own little blue dot,  they are some of the smallest planets to be found outside our own solar system.

Which begs the question… if we were able to downgrade Pluto because it was too small to be considered a “real” planet, when the time comes and we manage interstellar travel and our own little Earth seems tiny and insignificant in size compared to all those giants out there, will we be able to so heartlessly slash its status? And if we can’t, will it be based solely on the sentimental ideas that its life-sustaining properties and the fact that it’s humanity’s homeworld give it some kind of… je ne sais quoi that places it above other little rocky worlds? And if we do that, are we being true to the objective reality painted by science?

If we could do it to Pluto, could we do it to us?

I’m just saying.