[Vision2020] Red Giant Devous Planet, Hints at Earth's Fate

[Paul Rumelhart]

Talk about global warming!

We'd better figure something out quick, we only have about 5 billion years to go before our Sun expands.  I figure all we need are 24 rocket nozzles half-buried in the ground.  Just place one in each time zone as close to the equator as possible and have each one fire for an hour between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm local time, not adjusted for daylight savings, every day for the next billion years or so.  At that time, we can get an idea whether or not we need to double the number of rocket nozzles or if 24 will do.

Paul




________________________________
 From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
To: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 1:46 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Red Giant Devous Planet, Hints at Earth's Fate
 

No need to speculate about when is the ultimate end of our world... The fate described below is inevitable!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48746034/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UDVDNXlqFnU
Giant dying star caught devouring alien planet 
Astronomers say red giant's behavior hints at Earth's fate in billions of years 
A swollen star near the end if its life has been caught 
devouring one of its own planets — a scenario that could one day be 
replayed on Earth when our own sun dies in billions of years, scientists say. 
Astronomers discovered the cosmic crime scene while studying an 
ancient star that has expanded in its old age to became a so-called "red giant." The star, called BD+48 740, is older than our sun and much bigger. Its radius is 11 times larger than that of our sun.
As the star swelled into a red giant, it probably absorbed its innermost planet, researchers said.
"A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solarsystem, when the sun becomes a red giant and expands all the way out to Earth's orbit some 5 billion years from now," study 
team member Alex Wolszczan, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State 
University, said in a statement. Earth orbits the sun at a distance of 
about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). [How the Sun Will Die (Video)]
Two key pieces of evidence identified the star as a planet-killer, researchers said.
First, the astronomers found abnormally high amounts of lithium, a 
rare element in the universe, inside the star. That fact alone hinted 
that a missing planet may beinvolved.
"In the case of BD+48 740, it is probable that the lithium production was triggered by a mass the size of a planet that spiraled into the 
star and heated it up while the star was digesting it," said Wolszczan, 
who led the team that discovered the first planets beyond our solar 
system, back in 1992.
Then there was the strange orbit of a giant planet discovered around 
the star. The huge planet is about 1.6 times as massive as Jupiter and 
circles the star in an extremely elliptical orbit.
"We discovered that this planet revolves around the star in an orbit 
that is only slightly wider than that of Mars at its narrowest point, 
but is much more extended at its farthest point," said study team member Andrzej Niedzielski of NicolausCopernicus University in Torun, Poland. "Such orbits are uncommon in planetary systems around evolved stars and, in fact, the BD+48 740 planet's orbit is the most elliptical one detected so far."
The gravitational fallout of a second planet plunging into the parent star could have been enough to toss the observed alien planet into the 
chaotic orbit seen by the researchers.
"The highly elongated orbit of the massive planet we discovered 
around this lithium-polluted red-giant star is exactly the kind of 
evidence that would point to the star's recent destruction of its 
now-missing planet," said study team member Eva Villaver of the 
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain.
Still, Villaver said catching such an event in the act was an "improbable feat."
The international team of astronomers used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas to study the star BD+48 740. The 
study's lead author is astronomer Monika Adamow of Nicolaus Copernicus 
University. Astronomer Grzegorz Nowak, also of Nicolaus Copernicus 
University, also participated in the study.
The research into the case of the planet-killing star is detailed in a study appearing online in the Astrophysical Journal.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
     
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