NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Reveals First Carbon-Rich Planet
PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations.
“This planet reveals the astounding diversity of worlds out there,” said Nikku Madhusudhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, lead author of a report in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature. “Carbon-rich planets would be exotic in every way — formation, interiors and atmospheres.”
It’s possible that WASP-12b might harbor graphite, diamond, or even a more exotic form of carbon in its interior, beneath its gaseous layers. Astronomers don’t currently have the technology to observe the cores of exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, but their theories hint at these intriguing possibilities.
The research also supports theories that carbon-rich rocky planets much less massive than WASP-12b could exist around other stars. Our Earth has rocks like quartz and feldspar, which are made of silicon and oxygen plus other elements. A carbon-rich rocky planet could be a very different place.
“A carbon-dominated terrestrial world could have lots of pure carbon rocks, like diamond or graphite, as well as carbon compounds like tar,” said Joseph Harrington of the University of Central Florida, in Orlando, who is the principal investigator of the research.
Carbon is a common component of planetary systems and a key ingredient of life on Earth. Astronomers often measure carbon-to-oxygen ratios to get an idea of a star’s chemistry. Our sun has a carbon-to-oxygen ratio of about one to two, which means it has about half as much carbon as oxygen. None of the planets in our solar system is known to have more carbon than oxygen, or a ratio of one or greater. However, this ratio is unknown for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Unlike WASP-12b, these planets harbor water — the main oxygen carrier — deep inside their atmospheres, making it hard to detect.
WASP-12b is the first planet ever to have its carbon-to-oxygen ratio measured at greater than one (the actual ratio is most likely between one and two). This means the planet has excess carbon, some of which is in the form of atmospheric methane.
“When the relative amount of carbon gets that high, it’s as though you flip a switch, and everything changes,” said Marc Kuchner, an astronomer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., who helped develop the theory of carbon-rich rocky planets but is not associated with the study. “If something like this had happened on Earth, your expensive engagement ring would be made of glass, which would be rare, and the mountains would all be made of diamonds.”
Madhusudhan, Harrington and colleagues used Spitzer to observe WASP-12b as it slipped behind its star, in a technique known as secondary eclipse, which was pioneered for exoplanets by Spitzer. These data were combined with previously published observations taken from the ground with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Madhusudhan used the data to conduct a detailed atmospheric analysis, revealing chemicals such as methane and carbon monoxide in the planet’s atmosphere.
WASP-12b derives its name from the consortium that found it, the Wide Angle Search for Planets. It is 1.4 times as massive as Jupiter and located roughly 1,200 light-years away from Earth. This blistering world whips around its star in a little over a day, with one side always facing the star. It is so close to its star that the star’s gravity stretches the planet into an egg-like shape. What’s more, the star’s gravity is siphoning mass off the planet into a thin disk that orbits around with it.
The Spitzer data also reveal more information about WASP-12b’s temperature. The world was already known to be one of the hottest exoplanets found so far; the new observations indicate that the side that faces the star is 2,600 Kelvin, or 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s more than hot enough to melt steel.
Other authors of the paper are Kevin Stevenson, Sarah Nymeyer, Christopher Campo, Jasmina Blecic, Ryan Hardy, Nate Lust, Christopher Britt and William Bowman of University of Central Florida, Orlando; Peter Wheatley of the University of Warwick, United Kingdom; Drake Deming of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; David Anderson, Coel Hellier and Pierre Maxted of Keele University, United Kingdom; Andrew Collier-Cameron of the University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom; Leslie Hebb of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Don Pollacco of Queen’s University, United Kingdom; and Richard West of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom.
The Spitzer observations were made before it ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its warm mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer . More information about NASA’s search for exoplanets is at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ .
h/t to WUWT reader “Enneagram”
Another hydrocarbon rich planet.
Oh, my, what a surprise!
Can’t let my wife read this. She’d want to go shopping there. 😉
Methane? Seems like there are now lots of planets and moons, with no plant life, that contain oil or oil compounds, which supposedly takes trees and stuff to make fossil oil … hey wait, something isn’t right about all this fossil fuel baloney.
Synthetic oil?
2,600 Kelvin is about 2,200 Celsius.. I think the warmists found there hell for earth.
Richard says:
December 10, 2010 at 10:48 am
2,600 Kelvin is about 2,200 Celsius.. I think the warmists found there hell for earth.
No problem, Earth’s thermo-sphere reaches 1,500 Celsius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
The problem is that we can only observe that planet’s thermo-sphere only from the outside, we don’t know how it looks at the surface.
As for the methane they are a lot of cows over there 🙂
Actually Hansen used his Home planet -Venus a an example of Hell for Earth…Fortunately, he forgot to bring Gort… Er wait a mintute-Gore?Gort?Hmmm….
I hope this doesn’t become the poster child for a CAGW future for planet earth – remember they don’t believe the earth’s star is a significant factor in the “warming”.
CuriousGeorge – our wives must be related. 😉
Re: “This blistering world whips around its star in a little over a day, with one side always facing the star. It is so close to its star that the star’s gravity stretches the planet into an egg-like shape. What’s more, the star’s gravity is siphoning mass off the planet into a thin disk that orbits around with it.”
Within the electric universe view, these thin disks which surround stars are instead ejecta, and the planet is likely to have recently been ejected by the host star.
But, of course, the Big Bang’s former competitor — plasma cosmology — is not taught to college physics students, and so none of them would have any idea whether or not the data supports this alternative inference that planets are ejected from stars due to electrical stellar stressing.
And the fact is that most people would just prefer to blindly argue against it than investigate it for themselves.
Venus with 480 C is about 180 milion km from the sun and needs 224 days to circle the sun. WASP-12b cycles its sun in 1.1 days. Or WASP-12b is very close to its sun and therefore hot or it is cycling at incredible speeds around its sun.
Diamonds sticking out of rocks?
They found supermans place.
But it’s dirty like a coal mine and stinks to high heaven.
“Our sun has a carbon-to-oxygen ratio of about one to two, which means it has about half as much carbon as oxygen.”
CO2? No wonder it’s so hot!
And i believed that the cow(s) jumped over the moon and expelled all that methane.
Also wot is all this about a White Anglo Saxon Protestant planet WASP-12b? are there there no Jewish or Catholic ones out there?
I think we should be told.
NASA’s playing the race card.
@ Chris Reeve : As long as we have no further intel nor on the dimensions of the star , nor the planet , either way is sheer speculation.
Its could be a run off from the star as you proposed. That would , at the high speeds resulting from the time to orbid the star , create a frisbee shaped sattelite disc being trapped into orbid by the gravity of the star. It could be a little star though.
questions, questions.
This one-line sentence stood out above all others in the post:
“Carbon is a common component of planetary systems and a key ingredient of life on Earth.</b/"
Oh, bolleaux!
I can see where they can make an argument for low levels of oxygen, but their logic fails to support any statement about the planetary surface. We have an atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen, and water. Do we then conclude that our planet Earth consists of nitric acid? Of course not.
Otherwise, what they are describing is just another gas giant, like Jupiter. They say Jupiter is different in that it has water—but so deep in its atmosphere, it is hard to detect (…indeed, how then did we detect it?). But if this planet is so close to its sun as described, solar UV can easily break down water in its upper atmosphere—and also carbon dioxide. It may well be that carbon monoxide is the only stable form of gaseous oxygen available in an atmosphere that is rich in carbon and hydrogen, but bathed in UV (remember that Jupiter is remote from our sun). If the surface of the planet is silicate, how would the atmosphere tell us that? It doesn’t tell us that about the Earth.
The nice thing about these bombastic claims, from NASA’s standpoint, is that no one is likely to be able to prove them wrong for several centuries, if not millenia or longer.
one must keep in mind this is all inferred from proxy data
no actual planet has actually been observed.
i am not against the research, maybe some day it can be confirmed.
just don’t take it as gospel
Well, guess that kind of puts the ‘Peak Oil’ thesis to bed… A LOT more to mine out there 😉
peterhodges says:
December 10, 2010 at 1:06 pm
no actual planet has actually been observed.
Actually they have, HR 8799 with at least 3 planets a possible even a fourth one. Fomalhaut has at least one that has been seen, 1RXS J160929.1-210524 with a planet and GJ 758 with at least one planet but perhaps even one more.
But there are more (at least 8) ways to detect exo-planets and we find them in very unusual places, the first ones ever found where orbiting a Pulsar, and that’s now some 18 years ago, we now know of more than 500 of them. The comming decade will we most likely see a ten fold increase in the number of known exo-planets.
I would say that there is a very good chance that Exo-planets are a reality.
@ PhilJourdan says:
December 10, 2010 at 11:22 am
CuriousGeorge – our wives must be related. 😉
All women are related, at least when it comes to diamonds. I once took her to the Smithsonian, and the only thing she wanted to see ( and possible steal if she could ) was the Canary diamond. I practically had to drag her out of the exhibition. Literally thousands of carats of sparkly rocks. 😉 🙂
@ Chris Reeve says:
December 10, 2010 at 11:34 am
And the fact is that most people would just prefer to blindly argue against it than investigate it for themselves.
Don’t mean to be snarky, but how would “most people” go about investigating it for themselves? Given the fact that “most people” don’t have the resources, technology, or education to do so. The only recourse is to compare other peoples investigation, is it not?
“You carbon-based life forms just have no sense of fun!”
— Douglas Adams’ robot disco call girls.
Well, honey, lemme tell you, I grew up on a planet hot enough to melt steel, so we danced, all right, but it wasn’t just for fun… Have another drink…
Wait. NASA? Discovery?
I’ll wait for the retraction tomorrow. (Think arsenic life forms; think GISS)
“Astronomers don’t currently have the technology to observe the cores of exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, but their theories hint at these intriguing possibilities.”
=============
I thought the core of our home planet was still up for debate?
With all due respect, and said with a smile, I offer this quote:
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” (Mark Twain), 1883) .
I imagine a closeup study of the planetary system, would cause the astronomers to blush at their ignorance, but, it doesn’t lessen the discovery.
It also allowed my conjecture 🙂
Thanks
Robert says:
December 10, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Actually they have, HR 8799 with at least 3 planets a possible even a fourth one. Fomalhaut has at least one that has been seen, 1RXS J160929.1-210524 with a planet and GJ 758 with at least one planet but perhaps even one more.
interesting robert. i will have to google those up. but do you really mean ‘seen’ as in an actual planetary body in a telescope of any sort? or do you still mean ‘seen’ as in secondary effects theoreticised to be produced by an orbiting planetary body?
i also suspect there are plenty out there, and would certainly be excited by a ‘picture’ of one 🙂
sweet that was easy
http://www.google.com/images?q=fomalhaut+planet+hubble&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&safe=active&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1703&bih=790
thanks for heads up robert, that is awesome!!
Nope, no carbon tax because there’s no molecular signature for CO2, just CO. Which is genuinely poisonous, of course.
“Venus with 480 C is about 180 milion km from the sun and needs 224 days to circle the sun. WASP-12b cycles its sun in 1.1 days. Or WASP-12b is very close to its sun and therefore hot or it is cycling at incredible speeds around its sun.”
Also a day on Venus is 243 earth days and rotates opposite to the other planets including earth, a perfect planet to model earth and devastating doomsday CO2 predations from. /sarc
Dear Sir,
Outrageous that another planet should be hoarding energy. This could lead to life, diverse life at that, and all manner of subsequent social/political/economic problems.
– outraged of Yorkshire
The observed spectrum ( a few points) is unconvincing and inadequate for a press release. If CO is really there, then there is not an excess of oxygen. Without oxygen, goodbye to many rock minerals.
These guys might be specialists in their fields and they might even be right, but I can’t see the point of putting this sparse speculation to the public.
WASP-12b derives its name from the consortium that found it, the Wide Angle Search for Planets. It is 1.4 times as massive as Jupiter and located roughly 1,200 light-years away from Earth. This blistering world whips around its star in a little over a day, with one side always facing the star. It is so close to its star that the star’s gravity stretches the planet into an egg-like shape. What’s more, the star’s gravity is siphoning mass off the planet into a thin disk that orbits around with it.
The Spitzer data also reveal more information about WASP-12b’s temperature. The world was already known to be one of the hottest exoplanets found so far; the new observations indicate that the side that faces the star is 2,600 Kelvin, or 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s more than hot enough to melt steel.
~
Good 1200 light years away. That thing is way too close to its sun. yowser
Re: “Don’t mean to be snarky, but how would “most people” go about investigating it for themselves? Given the fact that “most people” don’t have the resources, technology, or education to do so. The only recourse is to compare other peoples investigation, is it not?”
I wasn’t speaking so much of a scientific investigation, as a personal investigation.
The process of formulating a meaningful opinion on a theory must always begin with learning what the theory states, what historical context it exists within, and what predictions have been made based upon this alternative theory. Until a person reaches this point, and in an objective, fair-minded manner (as accorded the conventional theories), there is no philosophically-justified stance that a person can make in arguing against it.
To be clear, very few scientific thinkers today — laypeople or professional alike — have done this background research on what plasmas are, how they tend to behave within the laboratory, how the cosmic plasma models differ from the laboratory plasma observations and what plasma cosmology postulates. Without this background research, none of these people possess any basis to even understand what predictions have come true since they were claimed. It turns out that plasma cosmology is an incredibly predictive cosmology, compared with the conventional theories.
This is the fundamental problem which is driving just about all of the confusion within the cosmological and astronomical realms today. We’ve known since the 1950’s that the plasma state is the universe’s preferred state for matter, and yet, few people can actually explain how plasmas tend to behave within the laboratory. Oops!
Do not underestimate the importance of this first logical step, for what plasma cosmologists propose is very simple: That we can explain our astronomical observations of cosmic plasmas — which is in truth nearly everything we see with our telescopes — by observing laboratory plasmas. The reason that this works is that plasmas tend to scale over enormous magnitudes. Anthony Peratt, for instance, can create laboratory experiments which perfectly simulate the rotational characteristics of certain galaxies on a tabletop terrella — which is a rather spectacular claim as it was the enigmatic (to conventional gravity-based theories) astronomical observation of galaxies which inspired the need for dark matter, to begin with.
When people refuse to investigate on their own these pertinent questions, it ultimately constrains the questions they ask about the universe. By dismissing the laboratory-observed properties of the universe’s dominant state of matter as relevant in our analysis of the universe, theorists permit themselves to substitute in their own mathematical models for the universe’s behaviors. They gladly do this, and the effect of these models for cosmic plasmas is to essentially remove their electromagnetism sufficient that they can be modeled as gravitational matter like fluids and gases. To be clear, within the laboratory, plasmas only behave as gases and liquids under very limited conditions. With less than 1% ionization, and an ambient magnetic field, a plasma can essentially ignore gravity.
This is the single-most important failure in physics right now. None other comes even close. Whoever figures out a way to force the astrophysicists and cosmologists to learn about these things basically resolves the most significant, long-standing problems in science today. Resolve this problem, and all of the other problems will start falling like dominoes — climate change included.
But, getting people to follow this line of reasoning has proven to be completely impossible. There is a form of cognitive dissonance happening in our society today. All sorts of philosophical mistakes are being made in cosmology and astrophysics, and it has the effect of being a perfect storm which induces mankind to ignore the presence of electricity in space. Astrophysical textbooks introduce plasmas as the dominant state of matter within their introductions, and then proceed to immediately ignore the relevance of this observational fact by introducing all sorts of invisible, theoretical particles which are needed to prop up the gravity-based theories. What the students are never taught is that these theoretical particles become unnecessary when the plasma models are corrected to be fundamentally electromagnetic.
For those of us who have done our homework, we need not be professional scientists or even mathematicians to understand how well the plasma-based models are working. This may sound like a bold statement, but it is true. And it is only true because of the strength of the non-mathematical arguments. After all, plasma cosmology is an empirically-derived cosmology. One need only understand how the plasmas behave, and interpreting astronomical imagery becomes that much easier. This is not the same as saying that there is no mathematics in plasma cosmology. There is PLENTY. But, the math is there to explain the underlying physics of what’s going on … It’s not there to prop up the existence of some primordial explosion, or to prove that gravity is dominant even as it is something on the order of 10^35 weaker than the electric force. Each cosmology must be evaluated on its own terms.
It’s sad, but the typical layperson who is sufficiently open-minded and eager to learn about competing arguments can have a far better understanding of the universe today than a professional astrophysicist or cosmologist. This is because the current conventional gravity-based theories are GARBAGE.
Think about this: When Einstein created Relativity, he had no idea that the universe preferred plasmas. We didn’t find that out until we sent probes up in the 50’s. When Einstein created Relativity, he had no idea that intergalactic space is permeated by magnetic fields. We didn’t find that out until 1986. People need to start paying more attention to the timeline in physics. It DOES matter enormously.
But, to Einstein’s credit, he was skeptical of the underlying physics of bending empty space all the way to the end. It’s his followers who have failed to adopt his philosophical stance who have caused all of the problems.
When Einstein died, Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision” was opened on his desk. That book was one of the world’s most controversial books of all time, and if it would turn out to be more right than wrong, it would be a rejection of nearly all of Einstein’s own theories. That he was reading it when he died is a point which his followers have conveniently decided to ignore. It suggests that he had possibly realized his mistake.
Re: “@ Chris Reeve : As long as we have no further intel nor on the dimensions of the star , nor the planet , either way is sheer speculation.”
I will agree that this is perhaps not the astronomical observation which we can use to judge competing cosmologies. It’s worth noting, however, that conventional theorists who create models for the formation of stars and planets using gravity alone to this day run into great difficulties in even postulating models which work. This is vital to realize, as much time, money and resources have been spent by now in getting these models to work. It’s certainly not for lack of trying that they do not work!
And it’s also worth noting that when stars, in particular, are observed to form, that “jets” play an incredibly important role in this process. Now, in high school physics, it would not be controversial to say that jets of moving hot gas is in fact an electrical current. But, once you get into PhD-level graduate work, those e- and c-words are specifically avoided, as the conventional theories *assume* that electricity does not “do things of importance” in space (contrary to all observations that it does, actually).
Re: “Its could be a run off from the star as you proposed. That would , at the high speeds resulting from the time to orbid the star , create a frisbee shaped sattelite disc being trapped into orbid by the gravity of the star. It could be a little star though.
questions, questions.”
The very fact that there is debate over whether or not some cosmic objects are stars or planets should leave enough philosophical room to claim that they might be both, depending upon changes in current density supplied to them. But, what you find typically in cosmology is that the cart comes before the horse: Only those inferences which support a gravity-based cosmology with a primordial explosion are worthy of consideration and funding. Plasma cosmology, by contrast, is claimed to be “dead.” And Big Bang theorists can sleep well knowing that their funding channels are secured against that prior threat.
Meanwhile, what used to be the other half of the cosmological debate is today just ignored by everybody.
By the way, I’ve previously written on the electric universe here, at the end of the comments …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/18/snowstorm-on-a-comet/
If I can inspire even just a handful of people here to start reading about plasmas, then the long-term impact can be extraordinary. We all come with an ability to excel in scientific thought, but lapses in philosophy of science can mislead us into thinking that a very lively avenue of investigation is in fact not worth our time. Really, all that it takes to solve the greatest problems in physics and climate today is a little nudge in the proper direction. But, this little nudge faces an extraordinary, incalculable, even illogical hostility which I feel is completely self-evident to anybody who relishes things like objectivity, honesty and skepticism. Just look at the level of hostility to this idea, an consider that this hostility is born of an ignorance of what plasmas really are. Once you realize this simple truth, many doors will start to open up.
It is an amazing irony that the biggest secret in physics today is actually also the most self-evident. It is only our arrogance, ideologies and pre-existing beliefs which stands in the way of these realizations. Our human tendency is unfortunately to favor certain theories over others. There are very good *human* reasons why the Big Bang theory is the current dominant theory.
Education was never meant to be a force which constrains investigation. A physics education is meant to equip us for the complex task of questioning that which we’ve been taught, so that we can get on with the business of eliminating the human fingerprints from our scientific theories. The physics PhD today is, by contrast, a fortified castle whose sole purpose is to protect the ongoing thought experiment.
Don’t fall for it. Do your own investigation. Trust your ability to understand these debates, but try to be fair. Read about theories which you might not (yet) agree with. This is the only philosophical approach which can collectively move us forward in our scientific thoughts. Because, I’m here to tell you, what’s happening right now in physics IS NOT WORKING. It is not philosophical. The very framework we use to postulate inferences for every single research paper in physics and climate theory is arguably wrong.
The inferential step was meant to be that point in science where we consider competing ideas. When you constrain the inferential step, you create a major problem.
Re: ““Venus with 480 C is about 180 milion km from the sun and needs 224 days to circle the sun. WASP-12b cycles its sun in 1.1 days. Or WASP-12b is very close to its sun and therefore hot or it is cycling at incredible speeds around its sun.” … Also a day on Venus is 243 earth days and rotates opposite to the other planets including earth, a perfect planet to model earth and devastating doomsday CO2 predations from. /sarc”
This notion that Venus is the Earth’s sister planet is solely based upon the “conventional framework” which is assumed in physics today. Outside of that framework, there’s little reason to think it. There remain many holes in this story.
Importantly, Venus plays a vital role in the stories told by people several thousand years ago. In the beginning, ancient man considered Venus a non-hostile, beautiful planet which they likened to a comet with long flowing hair each chance they had. But, over time, ancient people came to view Venus as a threat to human existence. These stories about Venus seem to generally coincide with mankind’s maturing self-awareness and cognitive awakening.
Many years ago, there were some very fascinating debates between people like Charles Ginenthal (and other “catastrophists” like Immanuel Velikovsky) and Carl Sagan on the topic of Venus’ albedo. It was claimed by some catastrophists that Venus is actually emitting more light than it’s receiving, suggesting that it was cooling down from some sort of recent (as in last few thousand years) catastrophic event. Conventional theorists argued that this was absurd, and my recollection is that they would eventually solidify assumptions that Venus’ temperature was in equilibrium with its environment, in the absence of strong evidence to make that claim. This debate was arguably never actually “settled” until perhaps more recently, when it was discovered that there are so many lightning strikes on the planet that it exhibits a continuous glow through its cloud cover. Apparently, the catastrophists appear to have gotten that one right — and yet, nobody ever gave them credit.
Of the probes which made it down into Venus’ atmosphere and onto the surface (which is around 900 F), the temperatures they recorded (before the probes melted) failed to confirm the conventional ideas for what sort of temperature profile they should expect to see. Conventional theorists more than once had to distance themselves from their own data in order to cling onto their preferred theory for Venus’ formation.
It appears that the theories for Venus have over time demonstrated an ability to defy all criticism and even evidence.
This line of investigation that Venus is actually a new planet can — if people desire — be strongly supported by various lines of evidence. The testimony regarding Venus’ arrival as a comet in ancient human writings is incredibly widespread. It literally spans the entire globe, and it is often discussed within a context of a smaller, redder “warrior” actor.
The notion that we modern humans feel completely comfortable with throwing away all of the ancient testimony is truly arrogant. This assumption that all of the ancient writings are just scrambled rants from weak-minded crazy people is really quite disrespectful and arrogant, at once. If there were events which could be witnessed within the sky, then all of the cultures would try to recount these events in their cultural stories. And if this is true, then these stories can be compared with one another and their similarities can possibly be used to recount the events.
But, what’s happening right now is that modern-day scientists and theorists would prefer to just ignore all ancient testimony which does not support their preferred theories.
People need to get out of this trap of imagining that the “genesis” referred to in the Bible and the cultures of the world represents a birth of the universe and humans. If a global catastrophe occurred, those who survived could rightfully imagine that this new post-catastrophe age is a “genesis” as well. In fact, professional mythologists who study the ancient languages of the world can indeed make a compelling case on this subject …
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/101208matter.htm
We should not reject ancient human writings just because they are called “mythology.” The word “myth” has a dual meaning of “untrue,” but that does not make all ancient stories told by man untrue. These writings represent information which can possibly be decoded by comparing what is said by all of the cultures of the world. Throw away the differences, and use the similarities to formulate a hypothesis. This is what David Talbott has been doing for decades now. He calls it comparative mythology, and it has proven to be a successful technique for decoding human mythology.
Re: ““Venus with 480 C is about 180 milion km from the sun and needs 224 days to circle the sun. WASP-12b cycles its sun in 1.1 days. Or WASP-12b is very close to its sun and therefore hot or it is cycling at incredible speeds around its sun.” … Also a day on Venus is 243 earth days and rotates opposite to the other planets including earth, a perfect planet to model earth and devastating doomsday CO2 predations from. /sarc”
Chris Reeve says:
“This notion that Venus is the Earth’s sister planet is solely based upon the “conventional framework” which is assumed in physics today. Outside of that framework, there’s little reason to think it. There remain many holes in this story.”
First, I see no mention of Venus being a sister planet to earth in the post(s), these are based on know modern scientific observations. Though a critical thinker would come to the hypothesis that a planet that acts like a moon must of been formed in the same manor, even with it’s unmoon like slow planetary rotation.
Thus a planet formation with an opposite rotation as a moon would be formed in conjunction with a close planet. The Earth and Venus are locked into a 3:2 resonance, hence the conclusion that we were born sister’s together when expelled/created from our sun. The myth in my opinion is that moons are created from captured comets and then trying to explain Venus as a captured comet, as in the Immanuel Velikovsky’s way of thinking( http://www.skepdic.com/velikov.html ) , has polluted scientific theory’s.
Myth is just a ancient religious/ belief/bias used to explain scientific observation, like a flat earth, the sun and planets going around the earth and in the modern age , a major extinction from meteorites, the big bang theory, fossil fuel oil and CO2 AGW.
Only wild hypothesis to conform with the doctrine/religion/belief with the lack of understanding of that time. Letting old or newer myths influence modern science discovery with bias unproven speculation stalls scientific advancements.