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WASP-104b is Darker than Charcoal
By analysing the K2 short-cadence data from Campaign 14 we detect phase-curve modulation in the light curve of the hot-Jupiter host star WASP-104. The ellipsoidal modulation is detected with high significance and in agreement with theoretical expectations, while Doppler beaming and reflection modulations are detected tentatively. We show that the visual geometric albedo is lower than 0.03 at 95% confidence, making it one of the least-reflective planets found to date. The light curve also exhibits a rotational modulation, implying a stellar rotational period likely to be near 23 or 46 days. In addition, we refine the system parameters and place tight upper limits for transit timing and duration variations, starspot occultation events, and additional transiting planets.
WASP-104b's albedo was previously thought to be 0.4 (absorbing 60% of incoming light).
Also at ScienceAlert.
Related: NASA Finds a Pitch-Black Hot Jupiter Exoplanet (WASP-12b)
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:12PM (4 children)
He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
-- Job 26:8
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape,
measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high.
It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
-- 1 Kings 7:23
(circumference about 45 feet or about 14 meters, or 444.505 attoparsecs)
The ratio π (pi) does not apply. State legislators can feel free to use 3.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 26 2018, @03:22AM (1 child)
Butbutbutbut CONTEXT! You're obviously READING IT OUT OF CONTEXT YOU BLASPHEMING HELLBOUND ATHEIST HEATHEN!!!111eleventyone
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 27 2018, @06:35PM
Actually, I don't think I read it out of context. It just seemed amusing to post here.
As for that passage in Job about Clouds. I would point out Job was one of the very earliest books written in the Bible, despite its position within the OT books. It seems to me that Job is marveling at the clouds and what God could do, within the framework of his argument. His argument with his three "friends" (miserable comforters are you all!, he says later)
As for the Pi reference, again, like Job, it is not meant as any kind of statement about science or mathematics. Merely some mention about the construction of a large round object and its (approximate) dimensions. Thirty cubits around, with a ten cubit diameter? The difference from thirty cubit circumference is between 1/10 and 1/5 of a cubit. Probably a rounding error to them.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 26 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)
Of all the bullshit in the bible you could attack, half-baked mathematical pseudo-pedantry was a very weak choice of weapon.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 27 2018, @06:38PM
My purpose was more amusing than as any kind of attack. If I wanted to attack (which I do not) there is plenty that I could use. But then I could defend that same attack as well.
Example:
What? If a woman gives birth to a boy she is unclean for seven days. But birth of girl makes her unclean fourteen days. But the point is "ceremonially unclean".
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.