Scientists discover huge planet... or a small star

[LogicalFallacy]

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/astronomers-spot-a-planet-so-big-they-dont-think-it-is-a-planet/ar-BBEPecB?li=BBqdg4K 

[pantheory]

18 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/astronomers-spot-a-planet-so-big-they-dont-think-it-is-a-planet/ar-BBEPecB?li=BBqdg4K 

 

Yeah, as the article explains the planet could be of three similar sorts. First, it could be a proto-star that never quite got big enough for hydrogen fusion. Second, it could be a brown dwarf star that has too little fusion for us to observe. And third, it could be a brown dwarf star that lost its fusion processes because of it burned away its marginal excess of hydrogen. Pretty amazing since just a few decades ago we only could observe planets within our solar system.

[bornagainathiest]

A point of clarification.

 

The planet is around 22,000 light years away - but further observations are encouraged to help shape our perceptions of planets, dwarf stars, and gaseous masses.

 

This sentence could be construed to mean that further observations of this planet, OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, are encouraged.

But that would be impossible.  The OGLE project uses gravitational microlensing to make it's observations, relying on the chance line up of stars and planets many thousands of light years away.  Since this planet's host star is following it's own orbit around the Milky Way galaxy there will never come a time when it, it's planet and the Earth will line up again.  Our Sun and this other star orbit through the Milky Way at different speeds and at different angles with respect to each other.  Likewise, this giant planet and the Earth also orbit their respective suns at different speeds and at different angles to each other.  These four variables will not coincidence again.  So, no further microlensing observations of this OGLE planet are possible.  Each microlensing event is unique.  Also, the distances involved are too great for observations by other telescopes, either on Earth or by the Hubble space telescope.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Gravitational_Lensing_Experiment

 

Therefore, above quote should therefore be construed to mean that further observations [of other planets, dwarf stars using other microlensing events] are encouraged to help shape our perceptions of planets, dwarf stars and gaseous masses.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

Thanks BAA.