Recent content by 1saxman

But without 'wondering' there is no discovery.

At last! You understand the question! I got canned on another forum for daring to ask it. Thanks very much for the info that the Kepler team knew this and took it into account. I agree on the probable number of planets. The term 'transit' refers to an exoplanet occluding its sun which results...

Can't rule that out but I would be surprised if more than 40% are parallel to the galactic plane of ecliptic. Whatever, maybe we'll find out some day.

My question relates only to the plane of ecliptic in solar systems and how it affects the occlusion of those stars by their planets when viewed from Earth or near space. Imagine that all of them were at 90 degrees from the line of sight from Earth - then no planets could be discovered by the...

I think the ecliptic of each solar system in the galaxy to be at random. The incidence of being able to detect a planet in any system by the occlusion method depends on the ecliptic of that system being edgewise to the observer, which must be a rare occurrence. Hence, the estimation of planets...

Don't forget, the 'constellations' are not really points on a plane except in the imagination of the viewer. All the stars in a given 'constellation' might be possibly thousands of light years closer to or farther from us. Seen from 90 degrees away at the same distance, there would be no...

A 'cluster-suck' :cool:

Any aliens so inexperienced that they would deign to 'intervene' with what's happening on this backwater rock would therefore be on about the same level of sophistication as ourselves and therefore would never have survived to be able to cross interstellar space to attempt such a thing. So, its...

It seems logical that at the end of the universe as we know it, when only 'black holes' are left, they will consume each other in a rapidly increasing chain reaction until somewhere/somewhen, a 'big bang' occurs and another universe is born - the ultimate 'white hole'.

Are the orientations of solar systems in this galaxy random? The question is related to discovering planets by the occlusion method. Looking at any star, the plane of that solar system must at 180 degrees to the observer in order to detect planets occluding that sun. Depending on the distance...