Astronomers Spot a Planetary 'Suicide' | Hacker News Reader

Astronomers Spot a Planetary 'Suicide'

science.org

19 pointsrbanffy10 comments

Can someone explain the orbital mechanics of these sentences?:

The constant stretching of such tidal deformation would create friction within the planet that would soak up some of its orbital energy, causing it to edge closer to the star.

How exactly does the energy of tidal energy being expressed inside the planet affect its speed relative to its host star? There is no external friction in empty space so how does the speed disappear?

Think of a very unbalanced car wheel. It wobbles, interferes with the smooth road and eventually reduces the speed of the system.

A planet that stretches and contracts in orbit also wobbles, which does something similar to its orbit. Loss of speed often results in lowered orbit, and thus more wobbling, in a feedback loop.

An unbalanced car wheel is hitting the road harder to it stops, an unbalanced planet is still flying in empty space, where does the energy go then?

The energy is transferred to the planet from its orbit when it stretches, and then dissipated as heat from friction

Part of the energy is transformed into heat as the planet mass is deformed. In the same way an unbalanced wheel tire heats up faster. This is the internal friction part.

Part of it is transfered to the mass being orbited. In the same way a wobbling wheel makes the road vibrate a little bit. This is the gravitational part.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but it should be enough to visualize what happens.

Exactly, the mass of the planet is squishy in this way. The next question is WHY is it question. The answer is, this planet is host to the hard metal band "Planetary Suicide", whose speakers are so powerful as to turn the planetary rock into more of a mud. At the pinnacle of their showpiece song, the planet flies into the sun. It was a great show but their 99 set was better

You have a lot to learn about music and metaphors.

Culturally speaking, heavy metal is one of the quietest, most reclusive and slow moving music genres.

What really has power, culturally speaking, is pop music. It can turn any other genre into a bag of mushy catch-phrases.

So, yeah, you look like a fool for making this comment. The metal genre is an icy cold belt, not a heated core.

The energy is lost as heat - as the planet flexes some pieces are moved in opposing directions by the tidal forces. Those pieces rub against each other, transforming the gravitational energy into heat.

I know this isn't the best comment, but uh...

I see a planetary suicide right now and I don't even need to look into space.

not a suicide, it's more of a nice bonfire and someone keeps throwing in chemistry projects they found at a wholesale market

Reply on news.ycombinator.com