TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light?

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D_Archer
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TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by D_Archer » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:08 am

Hi,

I would like this thread to have criticisms to the TRAPPIST-1 "planet" findings.

What NASA provided as data:
Image

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I have my doubts about everything, but my most basic criticism is to the detection method used. There is no actual planet observation, they only trace dimming (blinking) of the "star" and infer all other characteristics, as per EU, red dwarf stars are not stable shiners but variable and can flare. The mainstream astronomers think these are "planets" because of the regularity of the dimming.

They observed the star for 500 hours with Keppler, the total orbital time of all "planets" is 1330 hours, these are the worlds best blink interpreters.

Orbital period in hours from the innermost "planet" to the outer one:
36
58
96
144
220
296
480

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Daniel
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willendure
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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by willendure » Fri Feb 24, 2017 7:45 am

Well its awfully hard to tell when things are so small and dim and far away. I still think its kind of cool that we are looking though - but how far off is it before we can make some kind of scout drone to fly out there and take a closer look and report back?

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by nick c » Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:04 am

I think that they are detecting planets.
Other than that, any descriptions of the conditions on these planets is nothing more than highly fanciful speculations designed to stimulate the public's imagination and interest.

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by D_Archer » Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:21 am

nick c wrote:I think that they are detecting planets.
Other than that, any descriptions of the conditions on these planets is nothing more than highly fanciful speculations designed to stimulate the public's imagination and interest.
Hi Nick,

Fanciful is a word i used too on another forum.

I would consider planets a possibility, but i would not say it is a science fact.

I would say that a red dwarf would have a weaker charge field (or electric push) and this would allow orbiting bodies to get closer in, the harmonics would be different then with our large, highly charged star. But the size difference in orbit is really huge, these 7 planets orbits fit inside the orbit of Mercury around our sun...

http://a.scpr.org/i/c7ac320d52bb9a79938 ... 7-full.jpg

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Daniel
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JeffreyW
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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by JeffreyW » Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:02 am

yea, I mentioned it 3 years ago on this forum.

Have they ruled out giant sunspots just orbiting in the atmosphere of the red dwarf? Would those not cause dimming in a regular fashion?
http://vixra.org/pdf/1711.0206v4.pdf The Main Book on Stellar Metamorphosis, Version 4

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by comingfrom » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:27 pm

I would like to add a criticism about how they headline their articles with premature assumptions like "could support life", and include statements like "the hunt for alien life".

The mainstream reports are so busy with silly speculating, and artistic impressions, they forget to give us the basic scientific facts of the discovery. They forget to tell us they are just assuming planets around a star.

Paul

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by D_Archer » Fri Feb 24, 2017 3:09 pm

JeffreyW wrote:yea, I mentioned it 3 years ago on this forum.

Have they ruled out giant sunspots just orbiting in the atmosphere of the red dwarf? Would those not cause dimming in a regular fashion?
They say the ultra cool red dwarf is only just larger than jupiter... if we can trust their astron size estimate, it should be at the stage (as in GTSM) to become a brown dwarf...too bad this is speculating, but yes there could be more persistent sunspots that would show up as a regular dimming of the astron...it would be the discovery of a new phenomenon, persistent sunspots.

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Daniel
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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by nick c » Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:02 am

My understanding is that sunspots can be ruled out. A planet would have the same signature rotation after rotation while sunspots change and then disappear. That is why it seems more than likely that some celestial object(s) is in orbit around the star. Other than that conclusion it seems that any other description involves 'educated guesswork.'

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by D_Archer » Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:50 am

nick c wrote:My understanding is that sunspots can be ruled out. A planet would have the same signature rotation after rotation while sunspots change and then disappear. That is why it seems more than likely that some celestial object(s) is in orbit around the star. Other than that conclusion it seems that any other description involves 'educated guesswork.'
They only observed TRAPPIST-1 for 500 hours... would it not be possible in EU that a star as red dwarf has longer lasting sunspots? Red dwarfs are also known as flare stars...

If this speculation is true, when they look at this system more, like years later...the findings could be different...now that would be a surprise. If not then yes it could be moons/planets.

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Daniel
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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by vector3 » Tue Mar 07, 2017 3:34 pm

I was kind of hoping for a TBP space news on the Trappist "discovery" considering it's fairly biggish news. Perhaps a few blips is just not enough to make an episode out of? I'd have been interested in their thoughts on it. Maybe it's in the pipeline..? :geek:

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by willendure » Wed Mar 08, 2017 3:38 am

comingfrom wrote:I would like to add a criticism about how they headline their articles with premature assumptions like "could support life", and include statements like "the hunt for alien life".

The mainstream reports are so busy with silly speculating, and artistic impressions, they forget to give us the basic scientific facts of the discovery. They forget to tell us they are just assuming planets around a star.

Paul
Yeah, science journalism is generally really bad.

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Re: TRAPPIST-1 Criticisms

Unread post by JeffreyW » Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:01 am

vector3 wrote:I was kind of hoping for a TBP space news on the Trappist "discovery" considering it's fairly biggish news. Perhaps a few blips is just not enough to make an episode out of? I'd have been interested in their thoughts on it. Maybe it's in the pipeline..? :geek:
Biggest news. It has more hits than "star", "planet", "exoplanet" combined.

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?pr ... |Exoplanet

If they keep the nebular hypothesis after the TRAPPIST-1 doozy, they are going to have the label pseudoscientist in their inner circles.
http://vixra.org/pdf/1711.0206v4.pdf The Main Book on Stellar Metamorphosis, Version 4

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