August 4, 2006
Super Planemo Brothers
A press release from the European Southern Observatory reports that a pair of planetary mass objects (’Planemos’) have been discovered.
Both objects have masses similar to those of extra-solar giant planets, but they are not in orbit around a star - instead they appear to circle each other. The existence of such a double system puts strong constraints on formation theories of free-floating planetary mass objects. The ‘Planemo’ Twins
One of the scientists involved in the discovery, Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto, says (my text in brackets):
[The pair of twins] mere existence is a surprise, and its origin and fate a bit of a mystery.
Besides the fact that this is an interesting story in and of itself, it’s Jayawardhana’s quote that struck a chord in me. When many people talk about science, they tend to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. “Hamlet”, Act 1 scene 5
What actually makes science so strong is the fact that science itself (generally, apart from a few scientists) knows this to be the case, and goes out of it’s way to discover these things!
