Is there anything special about our solar system?

[plat]

Besides life and Earth, is there anything special about our solar system?

 

[vogon13]

I'm here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

What a coincidence, so am I. How rare.

 

[plat]

Wow....didnt I just "life" as an exception

 

[nacnud]

Proof positive that I'm not alive then?<br /><br />With those exceptions I don't think there are enough observations of other solar systems to call ours unusual just yet.

 

[vogon13]

I'm surprised this topic sat here for 2 hours without someone else posting what I did.<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[plat]

Okay, in all seriousness, what do you think? is there anything besides life and Earth that makes our solar system special?

 

[toymaker]

I heard that Sun is unusuall as G type star but unfortunetly you must ask somebody more knowledgable.<br />

 

[nexium]

Our solar system has a lot of variety, especially Earth. Less variety may be typical ie ice and water. are found seasonly over much of Earth's surface. Steam is restricted to geysers, forest fires and volcanoes. Water vapor is found most everywhere on Earth, and likely in at least traces many places in our galaxy. Neil

 

[glutomoto]

<font color="yellow">Re: I heard that Sun is unusuall as G type star </font><br /><br />According to this website The Nine Planets, G type stars are plentiful in the milky way, but SOL is unusual in that it is more massive than most other G type stars.<br /><br /><hr /><blockquote>Our Sun is a normal main-sequence G2 star, one of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy. It is often said that the Sun is an "ordinary" star. That's true in the sense that there are many others similar to it. But there are many more smaller stars than larger ones; the Sun is in the top 10% by mass. The median size of stars in our galaxy is probably less than half the mass of the Sun.</blockquote><hr /><br /><br /><br />I don't know more, I just googled faster.<br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nexium]

Nine planets is correct using the counter-intuitive definition that a body is not a star unless it is main sequence. If we could count the compact stars and include them; our Sun would likely be in the less massive half. Stars with several times the mass of our Sun, become compact stars quickly, so compact stars may outnumber visable stars by a thousand times. If so, our sun is in the least massive 1% if we count compact stars. Neil

 

[aaron38]

Saturn's rings are quite young, so I think that is special.<br />The odds are most gas giant planets have old degraded rings like Jupiter's.<br /><br />But there's a difference between special and unique. Every solar system is different and hence unique. But special implies that there's something here which can't be found anywhere else in the galaxy.<br /><br />I don't believe that's the case, excluding Earth.<br />

 

[5stone10]

<font color="yellow">is there anything besides life and Earth that makes our solar system special?</font><br /><br />Yes - Richard Hoagland and the Iapetus Artificial Construct.

 

[5stone10]

/* ad hominem deleted */

 

[chessguy]

Many star systems contain multiple stars making planet formation quite tricky.<br /><br />Of all the planets found so far none have been found around stars with iron contents below about one third that of our sun. Planets have only been detected around stars that contain high amounts of iron and other metals.<br /><br />About 70% of planetary systems found have eliptical orbits only 30% have circular or roughly circular. On top of this due to the wobble detection method being the primary finder of planets so far it may be much worse than this as circular orbits are much easier to find using this method.<br /><br />Even after taking into account the fact that it is easier to find hot jupiter systems the statistics are very skewed towards them. Jupiter sized planets can be detected at distances of 5AU but only one so far out of 136.<br /><br />There are only certain locations in this galaxy that could produce habitable systems. Too close to the crowded centre and you get outbursts from the supper massive black hole. Keeping away from the spiral arms, where new stars are being formed is needed to avoid being gravitationally disrupted.<br /><br />

 

[plat]

"On top of this due to the wobble detection method being the primary finder of planets so far it may be much worse than this as circular orbits are much easier to find using this method. " <br /><br />I thought it was the other way around?

 

[chessguy]

It is all speculation as we are essentially comparing something we can see to something we can't.<br /><br />When articles describe the detection methods for extrasolar planets they make it seem easy. It is actually very difficult as the peturbation effects on stars are exceedingly small.<br /><br />Picture the following:<br /><br />Person A is standing on one side of a football field in the dark holding a flashlight. Person B is standing at the other end. Person A ever so slowly moves forward an inch then backwards an inch. Person B is trying to tell whether A is moving towards or away or at all. Now lets say Person B has to do this while spinning round. Lets also stipulate that Person B has to open and shut his eyes every so often.<br /><br />I'm not saying that it is impossible to detect patterns in the radial velocity of other stars - just very hard. The graphs you will get are far from perfect. You will only get pieces of the picture.<br /><br />Picture one complete (compressed) sine curve with five random points on it. Now picture an equally compressed bump follwed by a straight line. Again with only a few points on the graph.

 

[plat]

So basically, we dont know the full story

 

[chessguy]

Agreed.<br /><br />The first few chapters, however, have not been as promising as people like us had once hoped.

 

[dragon04]

I guess in some ways, our solar system is special.<br /><br />If our sun was in a massive globular cluster or 5K LY from the galactic core, it would be problematical at the least for a stable solar system to form I would think, let alone harbor an environment friendly to biological life. Living in the "backwoods" has its advantages.<br /><br />As far as the elemental/geological composition of the bodies in our solar system, I don't think Solville is special at all.<br /><br />I think life in an of itself is what makes our neighborhood special. "Special" is a relative term though.<br /><br />Compared to what? Our corner of the galaxy? The galaxy in its entirety? The Local Group? The entire Universe?<br /><br />If there were 100,000 solar systems in our galaxy that were not only similar in composition to ours but also harbored biological life, wouldn't we still be special considering that there are on the order of 200 Billion stars in the galaxy?<br /><br />I think what determines our "specialness" has less to do with star types and elements, and more to do with the roll of the dice coming up lucky 7s in our case.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[plat]

oops, nevermind