Saturday, April 02, 2011
Sun spot or planet?
Sun spot or planet?
I wonder if people might confuse sun spots with planets, when using some of the methods for detecting extraterrestrial solar systems.
Would you have to depend on there being more than one sun spot to tell the difference? ie only one planet per orbit.
Or would you assume that the closest 'planet' is a sun spot?
Is there an evolutionary theorem, that the rotation of a sun is always faster than that of all its planets? seems obvious, but not sure how you would prove it. I leave it as an exercise.
MartinW
I wonder if people might confuse sun spots with planets, when using some of the methods for detecting extraterrestrial solar systems.
Would you have to depend on there being more than one sun spot to tell the difference? ie only one planet per orbit.
Or would you assume that the closest 'planet' is a sun spot?
Is there an evolutionary theorem, that the rotation of a sun is always faster than that of all its planets? seems obvious, but not sure how you would prove it. I leave it as an exercise.
MartinW
