# Puffy Planet?



## j d worthington (Sep 14, 2006)

Just came across this.... should prove interesting for discussion:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060914/ap_on_sc/puffy_planet


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## pixter (Sep 14, 2006)

The same thing has been said (as far as a planet will float on water) of either Jupiter or Saturn. I think it's Saturn. I have never heard a planet referred to as "puffy", though.


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 14, 2006)

I don't know.  This has left me with the mental image of a huge pink (don't know why, but for me pink & fluffy seem to go together) puff-ball of a planet floating in a huge martini glass, with a toothpick emerging from one pole and an olive stuck on the end of the toothpick.


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## Rosemary (Sep 14, 2006)

Pink and fluffy does sound rather familiar LittleMiss !  

It's orbit is very quick...that would really age the inhabitants very rapidly... 

Seriously though, the article was very interesting.  Haven't heard of anything like that before.


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## carrie221 (Sep 14, 2006)

I keep picturing cotton candy trying to float in a pool and not... I just can't get it into my mind

It is interesting though


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## j d worthington (Sep 14, 2006)

Funny, LMA... I rather had the same visual in my head, as well... Not the most auspicious choice of terms, was it?


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## chrispenycate (Sep 15, 2006)

I was thinking lagest, lowest density?? but then its proximity to the star struck me: they've not only used too much baking powder, it's hot as venus down there. That situation can't be stable; few hundred thousand years, a few tens of millions at most, and it's going to merge with its star, probably very spectacularly. Puff, the magic planet- PUFF!


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 15, 2006)

Puff the magic planet
Lives by its star
And frolics in the solar wind
As it races round that sun

Little earth-bound 'stronomers
Found that puffy orb
A brand new kind of planet,
And called it HAT-P-1.

With all apologies to whoever deserves them.  This is your fault, Chris.


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## j d worthington (Sep 15, 2006)

Ummmm.... LMA... Maybe someone better check whatever you've been drinking....


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 15, 2006)

j. d. worthington said:
			
		

> Ummmm.... LMA... Maybe someone better check whatever you've been drinking....



I _know_ it's bad, j. d.  I just couldn't help myself, after Chris's comment about "Puff the magic planet".  A girl's got to give in to temptation _sometimes_.  Anyway, in this case, wouldn't the proper reference be, what have I been smoking, rather than what have I been drinking?

Oh, and for the record, I haven't been doing either.


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## j d worthington (Sep 15, 2006)

Actually, I was thinking about what might have been put in the reservoir... _Wild in the Streets_ sort of thing.... (And if _that_ reference doesn't date me, _nothing_ will!)


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 15, 2006)

Never did see that one, but I remember when it was out - right about the time I was going into junior high, as I recall.  *sigh*  And that is completely off-topic.  Great example I'm being.

So, how about those extra-solar planets.


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## carrie221 (Sep 15, 2006)

littlemissattitude said:
			
		

> Puff the magic planet
> Lives by its star
> And frolics in the solar wind
> As it races round that sun
> ...


 
That is soooooooooooo funny!  Now that song is in my head...


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## chrispenycate (Sep 15, 2006)

In my far distnt youth, at Imperial College, the IBM 7094 ran on Fortran 4, and had a programme known as the Phillidelphia fast fortran translator hence all sang:-
  PFFT the magic program, lived beneath IC
  And played around with punch cart decks put in by you and me
  Johnny was a student who love to play with PFFT.
  And fed in statistic results
  And other fancy stuff.

I dont remember all that followed; there were about six verses, ending with Johnny graduating and "the whole elec eng building went up in a PFFT of smoke". Ah, the siyties.
Which has nothing to do with your short orbit gas giant, or why it is a cosmic error that will be torn apart in a mere eyeblink, on the stellar scale. You've got to have rocks in your head to get that close to a star; indeed, if present models hold, it could never have come into being that close to a star, as the gas in that region would have been used up making the star itself , suggesting this is towards the end of an inward spiral (and no, I don't understand it. Tidal forces should make it drift _outward_.)


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## littlemissattitude (Sep 15, 2006)

chrispenycate said:
			
		

> In my far distnt youth, at Imperial College, the IBM 7094 ran on Fortran 4, and had a programme known as the Phillidelphia fast fortran translator hence all sang:-
> PFFT the magic program, lived beneath IC
> And played around with punch cart decks put in by you and me
> Johnny was a student who love to play with PFFT.
> ...



It was better than my poor effort, undoubtedly.  But I just couldn't restrain myself.  And, I bow to your superior knowledge on such matters as how and where planets can form.  It does make sense that it couldn't have formed so close to its star.


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## Hawkshaw_245 (Sep 15, 2006)

Perhaps this is where Puff Daddy came from?

But seriously, this does seem to contradict previously accepted ideas of what makes a planet a 'planet. Sounds like just a ball of gas. It's orbitng VERY fast, and is only a few million miles away from its sun. Perhaps the orbit we're witnessing is merely a downward spiral as it plummets into the sun.


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## carrie221 (Sep 15, 2006)

That is a very good point... of course it is so far away it may already have decended into the sun


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