Interesting project

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, M Holmes wrote:

> > Apparently NASA have decided to
> > send their next `interferometry mission' (a project aimed at finding
> > Earth-sized planets revolving around nearby suns) to this Andromedae.
>
> So we'll get the results in a few thousand years? Maybe they're just
> going to point some instruments in that direction?

        Well, this puzzled me too, since the Andromeda galaxy is thousands
of years away, but I don't actually know how far the stars that make up
the _constellation_ are.

        Anyhow, I know very little about NASA's current work, but an
astronomer friend her at Cambridge informs me that interferometer work is
done by analysing light sources, and requires no satellites - I thought
this was spectroscopy but she tells me this is related but different.

> One thing I did wonder is whether having two Jupiter sized planets in a
> system would be good for rock type planets since there'd be considerably
> more gravitational perturbations in such a system. I'm too lazy to do
> the math though. We used to have professional astronomers on this list
> (Hey McIntyre, you still out there?). Maybe they could comment.

        No astronomer I, but although Jupiter is massive, Saturn, Uranus
and Neptune are no tiddlers. I'm not sure the effects on the system would
be any more severe - wouldn't there be an equivalent sort of calm zone
such as we have inside the giants' orbits?

        Proceeding from a basis of no meaningful knowledge here, but very
interested... Yours,
                     Jon

NP: Electric Wizard - 'Electric Wizard' ('Mountains of Mars')