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Related: About this forumEarth Resides in Oddball Solar System, Alien Worlds Show
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | January 16, 2018 12:40pm ET
Our solar system may be an oddball in the universe. A new study using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope shows that in most cases, exoplanets orbiting the same star have similar sizes and regular spacing between their orbits.
By contrast, our own solar system has a range of planetary sizes and distances between neighbors. The smallest planet, Mercury, is about one-third the size of Earth and the biggest planet, Jupiter, is roughly 11 times the diameter of Earth. There also are very different spacings between individual planets, particularly the inner planets.
This means our solar system may have formed differently than other solar systems did, the research team suggested, although more observations are needed to learn what the different mechanisms were. [The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017]
"The planets in a system tend to be the same size and regularly spaced, like peas in a pod. These patterns would not occur if the planet sizes or spacings were drawn at random," Lauren Weiss, the study's lead author and an astrophysicist at the University of Montreal, said in a statement.
More:
https://www.space.com/39390-alien-planets-reveal-our-strange-solar-system.html?utm_source=notification
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Earth Resides in Oddball Solar System, Alien Worlds Show (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Jan 2018
OP
I would not be surprised if it turns out that we are the only one currently simply
cstanleytech
Jan 2018
#4
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)1. Solar system exceptionalism! n/t
maxsolomon
(32,989 posts)2. Clearly, this proves the existence of the Abrahamic Creator God
There's really no other explanation but Intelligent Design. The Discovery Institute will be pleased.
exboyfil
(17,857 posts)3. You throw this in with our Moon
and the premise of a Rare Earth begins more probable. You start throwing in improbable events into the Drake equation, and you quicky reach a very low number. It could be we are the only technological civilization in the galaxy.
cstanleytech
(26,080 posts)4. I would not be surprised if it turns out that we are the only one currently simply
due to the fact that most species only last a finite time and even intelligent technological ones will eventually fall and go the way of the dodo.