New Real Estate

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy believe they have the first images of a new planet actually in the process of becoming a planet, orbiting a star called PDS 70.

PDS 70 is about 340 light years from Earth, and is a kind of star called an orange dwarf. Now, I know what you're thinking, but that joke would be waaaaay too easy to make. Plus, he's 6'-2". An orange dwarf is the name given to a star larger than the cooler red dwarf stars found in large numbers around the universe and smaller than the yellow main sequence stars like our sun. Because it's smaller, the motion of a planetary mass in its orbit makes more of a wobble than there might be in a larger star, so astronomers have suspected for some time that PDS 70 has a planet.

So the Planck folks directed their instruments towards the gas cloud surrounding the small, dim star. Most theories of planetary formation involve a large cloud of gas condensing into a small solid mass and no, I'm not going to make that joke either. Careful study revealed that a planet was indeed forming in the gap, and the new planet had taken shape. Since the process is a very long one, scientists are unlikely to see much change in the new world, called PDS 70b, over time. But they have learned several things about it, such as how far away it is from its star and how long it takes to orbit. Currently circling its primary at about 22 times the distance the Earth is from our own sun, PDS 70b takes 120 years to complete one orbit.

Scientists also noticed that it was incredibly hot, with a surface temperature of about 1,700º Fahrenheit. Our own solar system's hottest planet, Venus, runs about 870º Fahrenheit, while we average about 61º if you mix all the readings together on ol' Terra.

Better instruments might show us more about PDS 70b, but they may not as well. Its thick, opaque and superheated atmosphere makes it impossible to see what's really going on there.

Which sounds pretty much exactly like the rest of the news and political logorrhea going on today, so maybe I should have made those jokes after all.