Sunday, April 06, 2008

Lie #12 - small world

I discovered the smallest planet outside the solar system. As you know, the universe is 20,000,000,000 years old and it is about 115,000,000,000 light years across. Our galaxy contains about 200,000,000,000 stars; so, you can imagine how it took me practically all day to find this planet. Here is an artist's rendering of it:


Because of its eccentric shape it has a wobbly orbit, which made it easier than usual to find. The planet, which I have named GJ 436c, orbits a red dwarf in leo about 30 light years from here. Its days are four years long, although the planet is so small that a year there is barely an afternoon here. The planet is populated by Native American dwarves, who spend most of their time moving their clocks forward and backward because of the constant change due to daylight savings time.

To indicate just how small the planet is, in the artist's rendering above a bowling ball has been added on the left to give you a sense of the scale.

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