Two new exotic planets discovered | Golden Skate

Two new exotic planets discovered

Mathman

Mathman

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
A few days ago astronomers discovered a new planet that is only 300 light years away. If the aliens set out for earth at a speed of 99.9998% of the speed of light, they could make the trip in 7.2 months (their time), just in time for the Sochi Olympics.

Then yesterday yet another one was discovered, this one 700 light years away. Both of these are right in our back yard. The second bunch of aliens could make the Olympics, too -- only they would have to travel at 99.99996% of the speed of light to make it in time. :)

http://www.latimes.com/news/science...scovered-alien-world-20130603,0,3875547.story

http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/science-environment/2013/06/new-planet-found.html

This planet is in the constellation Coma Berenices, so I assume they are Mae Berenice Meite fans. :)
 
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TontoK

TontoK

Hot Tonto
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Country
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The good news is that the Coma Berenician skaters are going to make it to the Olympics.

The bad news is that they're all skating to Carmen.
 
Mathman

Mathman

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Just in case anyone is wondering :biggrin: whether it is possible to accelerate something up to 99% of the speed of light -- yes! By July of 2012 the large hadron collider at CERN had achieved the capacity of accelerating a proton up to a 99.9999991% of the speed of light. This generates a relativistic kinetic energy of about 7 trillion electron volts.

For comparison, a trillion electron volts is about the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito, so here we have the energy equivalent of a squad of seven mosquitos acting in concert, achieved at a cost of only nine billion dollars. If you crash two of these protons head on, that's 14 billion electron volts . This is enough (just barely) to create a Higgs particle in the debris of the collision.

But look quick. A Higgs boson lasts only about one quintillionth of a second. :)

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRPyE3nW2QrsHw9ciJpE-plnLiwbaAHZqAEbb6uZI7Bi0453IOt
 
Mathman

Mathman

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Olympia said:
So this is going to lead to the warp drive?
Click to expand...

Yes! It is the interaction with the Higgs field that gives mass to atomic particles. If we could control Higgs particles we could turn off the Higgs field around us, achieve a massless state, and travel anywhere in the universe in zero subjective time (like photons do). :yes:
 
O

Olympia

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Oh, man. So cool. To quote Mrs Whatsit from A Wrinkle in Time, there is such a thing as a tesseract!

Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
 
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