Kepler Telescope Spots Hotter, Weirder Bodies Than Ever Before Seen (In The Sky, That Is)

I like how the scientist say it's to small to be a star and then say it could be a white dwarf "star" LMAO!

ou have a point hessbri, something doesn't quite add up in the article.
They appear to know enough about some of these planets to state their size and density (eg "Kepler 7b, is 1.6 times the size of Jupiter, and less dense than water"), so they must also know the mass. But the mass of a white dwarf is nearly that of a star, so should be easy to tell.

A couple of White Dwarf factoids from wikipedia:

"Although white dwarfs are known with estimated masses as low as 0.17[27] and as high as 1.33[28] solar masses, the mass distribution is strongly peaked at 0.6 solar mass, and the majority lie between 0.5 to 0.7 solar mass"

"The estimated radii of observed white dwarfs, however, are typically between 0.008 and 0.02 times the radius of the Sun this is comparable to the Earth's radius of approximately 0.009 solar radius"

"White dwarf effective surface temperatures extend from over 150,000 K to under 4,000 K"

""" You have a point hessbri, something doesn't quite add up in the article.
They appear to know enough about some of these planets to state their size and density (eg "Kepler 7b, is 1.6 times the size of Jupiter, and less dense than water"), so they must also know the mass. But the mass of a white dwarf is nearly that of a star, so should be easy to tell.

A couple of White Dwarf factoids from wikipedia:

"Although white dwarfs are known with estimated masses as low as 0.17[27] and as high as 1.33[28] solar masses, the mass distribution is strongly peaked at 0.6 solar mass, and the majority lie between 0.5 to 0.7 solar mass"

"The estimated radii of observed white dwarfs, however, are typically between 0.008 and 0.02 times the radius of the Sun this is comparable to the Earth's radius of approximately 0.009 solar radius"

"White dwarf effective surface temperatures extend from over 150,000 K to under 4,000 K"""

' - Citation Needed - '

The comment in the article implying that white dwarfs weren't stars may have been a mistatement. White dwarfs are not "main sequence stars." Basically, they're what you get when a star not much bigger or smaller than the sun casts off its outer shell after swelling into a red giant at the end of its hydrogen burning cycle. They would be on the other end of the density scale from the "styrofoam planet," however, with as much matter as a mountain packed into a spoonful of white dwarf. Anyway, these oddballs are only the easiest things for Keppler to have spotted in a few weeks of observations. After a few months, it should have a record of objects with orbits more like Mercury, then maybe Venus. Because the scientists want three transits for confirmation, a planet orbiting a sunlike star at Earth's distance will take about three years to confirm. However, smaller stars have habitable zones closer in to the star, so there may be anouncements of planets in the habitable zones of these stars within the next year or two.

Good point about the smaller stars. Also the smaller stars tend to last longer, so planets in the habitable zones may have had several billion more years in which to develop life.

dont talk about billions of years like its a useful timescale, normally you could say a few million or hundred million, but considering by saying a few billion you could be exceeding the lifespan of the universe in counting the lifespan of objects within that universe, i wouldnt say thats an approperite scale...however informal

What I don't understand is how can scientists claim that they are observing the spectrum of a planet and only the planet. What if the star that is providing the back lighting has elements which are not common to sun like stars and the spectrum reflects the elements from the star? I understand that most of astrophysics and the study of exoplanets is highly theoretical so it would seem that most of what the scientists are discovering are educated guesses. In addition, who can say if the Kepler Telescope is 100% accurate in its observations? When the Hubble first came online it had several glitches that took quite a bit of time to resolve. I find the discoveries mentioned in this article fascinating but I can't help but be a bit skeptical of the information's accuracy. On the other hand, these types of discoveries often turn conventional wisdom on its head.