Star-studded planetary stories
Star-studded planetary stories
Muse #331 - help revise our limited belief systems
They found a new planet under another Star just a couple of weeks ago. This planet is called “b Centauri b”.
This kind of news is not new, as we keep on finding new things as we explore space, as it ought to be. But, it cracked me up to read the caption from various news sources that screamed “Planet 10 times the size of Jupiter discovered when it shouldn’t even exist” - what a bull?
This planet apparently broke all the rules we have derived for planets. It was ten times heavier than Jupiter and 100 times further away from its Sun than Jupiter is. And it weighed three times larger than its Sun. Looks like the planet forgot to read the “rules of planet formation” that we have derived so far. A rebel.
It is funny that we derive models and then believe them to be true. As statistician George Box said “All models are wrong, some are useful” and it is imperative to find utility from these models or to throw out or update things that are not useful enough.
I see the same trait in the current rise of the spread of the Omicron variant. People and news articles have expectations for this variant. As if the virus cares. The virus has no plan. Except to keep doing what it does. Survival. The beauty of evolution in action.
So is the solar system. The Suns, the Stars, and the Planets. They keep on doing what they are doing. And we humans, we keep pondering. Modeling. And telling ourselves stories. As long as we don’t get stuck in them as true. But yes we do, going through our programmed motions of what we are supposed to do with ourselves.
And we slowly continue to scratch the surface of understanding in our collective learning journey.
Source:
Planet 10 times the size of Jupiter discovered when it shouldn’t even exist — https://globalnews.ca/news/8441388/giant-planet-discovered-10-times-size-jupiter/