[meteorite-list] A New Nearby Oddball Planet

Tue May 3 00:27:41 EDT 2011

Carl,

Molly Be Damned only has a density of 10.22 despite its
boiling point of 4912K -- it's too light.

We need to add something to an iron ball (density 8)
that is dense enough to raise the average to 11.0. We need
a minor component of density 18.0 or more.

Tungsten has a density of 19.25 and a melting point of
3680K and a boiling point 5828K. It would be "frozen"
solid at the 3000K surface temperature of the planet, but
the Molly Be Damned would be a liquid ocean...

I'll give you sparkling lakes of Molly Be Damned in the
Valleys of the Tungsten Mountains...

In reality -- hard to remember this planet is real, isn't
it? -- there must be a crust of dense refractory minerals
made from all the denser and refractory elements. Perhaps
this planet is the fried remains of a small gas giant core
that spiuraled in close?

One thing I can guarantee -- it's one weird place.

Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <cdtucson at cox.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; "Sterling K. 
Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A New Nearby Oddball Planet

> Sterling,
> It's Mostly Molybdenum along with a few heavier elements, based on the 
> brownleeite that we know is out there.
>
> --
> Carl or Debbie Esparza
> Meteoritemax
>
>
> ---- "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Back in January, there was a List discussion of a planet
>> of the Kepler 10 (unnamed) star which has a density of
>> 8.8, as heavy as iron and an argument about whether
>> an entirely iron planet could exist and how.
>>
>> Now we have a (roughly) terrestial planet with a density
>> of 11.0, or about the density of a solid lead ball... Iron
>> ain't gonna do it.
>>
>> http://www.space.com/11544-densest-alien-planet-55cancrie.html
>>
>> Nearby Alien Planet Nearly Dense as Lead
>>
>> Astronomers have pinned down some details of an
>> exotic nearby alien planet that's almost as
>> dense as lead.
>>
>> The exoplanet, called 55 Cancri e, is 60 percent
>> larger in diameter than Earth but eight times
>> as massive, researchers revealed Friday (April 29).
>> That makes the alien world the densest solid planet
>> known -- twice as dense as Earth. [2 x 5.5 = 11.0]
>>
>> Astronomers previously thought 55 Cancri e took
>> about 2.8 days to orbit its parent star. But the
>> new study reveals that the exoplanet is so close
>> to its host star that it completes a stellar lap
>> in less than 18 hours.
>>
>> "You could set dates on this world by your wristwatch,
>> not a calendar," study co-author Jaymie Matthews,
>> of the University of British Columbia, said in a statement.
>>
>> Updating views of 55 Cancri e:
>>
>> The super-dense alien world is part of a multiplanet
>> solar system about 40 light-years from Earth, in the
>> constellation Cancer (The Crab). Its sunlike parent
>> star, 55 Cancri, is bright enough to be seen from
>> Earth by the unaided eye, researchers said.
>>
>> This wide-angle photograph of the night sky shows
>> the location of 55 Cancri, a star where astronomers
>> have found five planets, including a hot, dense
>> super-Earth.
>>
>> This wide-angle photograph of the night sky shows
>> the location of 55 Cancri, a star where astronomers
>> have found five planets, including a hot, dense
>> super-Earth.
>>
>> Since 1997, astronomers have discovered five planets
>> circling 55 Cancri (including 55 Canrci e in 2004).
>> All five alien worlds were detected using the so-called
>> radial velocity -- or Doppler -- method, which looks
>> for tiny wobbles in a star's movement caused by the
>> gravitational tugs of orbiting planets.
>>
>> Initially, astronomers thought 55 Cancri e had an
>> orbital period of about 2.8 days. But last year,
>> two researchers -- Harvard grad student Rebekah
>> Dawson and Daniel Fabrycky of the University of
>> California, Santa Cruz -- re-analyzed the data.
>> They suggested that the alien planet might actually
>> zip around its host star much faster than that.
>>
>> So Dawson and Fabrycky joined up with a few others
>> to observe 55 Cancri e more closely. The team trained
>> Canada's MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars)
>> space telescope on the planet's star, then watched
>> for the tiny brightness dips caused when 55 Cancri e
>> passed in front of -- or transited -- it from the
>> telescope's perspective.
>>
>> This is the same technique used by NASA's prolific
>> Kepler space observatory, which has found 1,235
>> alien planet candidates since its March 2009 launch.
>>
>> The team found that these transits occur like clockwork
>> every 17 hours and 41 minutes, just as Dawson and
>> Fabrycky had predicted. The starlight is dimmed by
>> only 0.02 percent during each transit, telling the
>> astronomers that the planet's diameter is about
>> 13,049 miles (21,000 kilometers) -- only 60 percent
>> or so larger than Earth.
>>
>> Using this information, the researchers were able to
>> calculate 55 Cancri e's density.
>>
>> "It's wonderful to be able to point to a naked-eye
>> star and know the mass and radius of one of its planets,
>> especially a distinctive one like this," said study
>> lead author Josh Winn of MIT.
>>
>> The research was released online Friday at the website
>> arXiv.org, and it has been submitted for publication
>> in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
>>
>> A scorching-hot world
>>
>> Because 55 Cancri e is so close to its parent star,
>> it wouldn't be a very pleasant place to live.
>> Temperatures on its surface could be as high as
>> 4,892 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 degrees Celsius),
>> researchers said.
>>
>> "Because of the infernal heat, it's unlikely that
>> 55 Cancri e has an atmosphere," Winn said. "So this
>> is not the type of place where exobiologists would
>> look for life."
>>
>> If you could somehow survive the heat, however,
>> the view from the planet's surface would be
>> exotic and spectacular.
>>
>> "On this world -- the densest solid planet found
>> anywhere so far, in the solar system or beyond -- 
>> you would weigh three times heavier than you do
>> on Earth," Matthews said. "By day, the sun would
>> look 60 times bigger and shine 3,600 times brighter
>> in the sky."
>>
>> But the appeal of 55 Cancri e is not limited to
>> such gee-whiz factoids. Because it's so close to
>> Earth, the planet and its solar system should
>> inspire all sorts of future work, researchers said.
>>
>> "The brightness of the host star makes many types of
>> sensitive measurements possible, so 55 Cancri e is
>> the perfect laboratory to test theories of planet
>> formation, evolution and survival," Winn said.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> With a surface temperature of nearly 5000F (or ~2700K),
>> this can't be a lead world -- it would have boiled away by
>> now. A solid iron planet would just barely survive -- iron
>> boils at 3134K.
>>
>> A planet of 75% iron with a 25% crust of Tungsten would
>> have a density of 11, and I suppose that if everything less
>> refractory than tungsten had boiled away, you could get
>> such a planet...
>>
>> Here's everything heavier than iron and its density.
>>
>> I got tired of entering boiling points but you can see
>> that the dense elements have high boiling points...
>>
>> Boiling points alone do not tell the story; vapor
>> pressures are high above the melting point and
>> such elements could slowly escape.
>>
>> Tungsten is the best bet. MP 3680K, BP 5828K.
>> and moderately abundant in the universe, about
>> like uranium.
>>
>> 76 Os Osmium  22.61 BP 5285K
>> 77 Ir Iridium  22.56   BP 4701K
>> 78 Pt Platinum  21.46   BP 5869K
>> 75 Re Rhenium  21.02    BP 5869
>> 93 Np Neptunium  20.45   BP 4273K
>> 94 Pu Plutonium  19.84   BP 3501K
>> 79 Au Gold  19.282   BP 3129K
>> 74 W Tungsten  19.25   BP 5828K
>> 92 U Uranium  18.95  BP 4404K
>> 104 Rf Rutherfordium  18.1
>> 73 Ta Tantalum 16.654   BP 5731K
>> 91 Pa Protactinium  15.37
>> 98 Cf Californium  15.1
>> 97 Bk Berkelium  14.79
>> 95 Am Americium  13.69
>> 80 Hg Mercury  13.5336
>> 96 Cm Curium  13.51
>> 99 Es Einsteinium  13.5
>> 72 Hf Hafnium  13.31
>> 45 Rh Rhodium  12.41
>> 44 Ru Ruthenium  12.37
>> 46 Pd Palladium  12.02
>> 81 Tl Thallium  11.85
>> 90 Th Thorium  11.72
>> 43 Tc Technetium  11.5
>> 82 Pb Lead  11.342
>> 47 Ag Silver  10.501
>> 42 Mo Molybdenum  10.22
>> 89 Ac Actinium  10.07
>> 71 Lu Lutetium  9.84
>> 83 Bi Bismuth  9.807
>> 69 Tm Thulium  9.321
>> 84 Po Polonium  9.32
>> 68 Er Erbium  9.066
>> 29 Cu Copper  8.96
>> 28 Ni Nickel  8.912
>> 27 Co Cobalt  8.86
>> 67 Ho Holmium  8.795
>> 48 Cd Cadmium  8.69
>> 41 Nb Niobium  8.57
>> 66 Dy Dysprosium  8.55
>> 65 Tb Terbium  8.229
>> 64 Gd Gadolinium  7.895
>> 26 Fe Iron  7.874
>>
>> You put together a planet from the list...
>>
>>
>> Sterling
>>
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