Telling Minecraft players about planets 16
technically this is like 20 but i didnt count the last few so whatever

Today's planet is Perwana

Perwana is a gas giant planet orbiting a star called Shama. It's about half the mass of Jupiter and orbits its star between the distance Earth and Mars orbit the Sun.
Shama, the star, is smaller than the Sun and only half as bright.

"Shama" is an Urdu word for "lamp" or "flame", and Perwana is another Urdu word meaning "moth". The planet and star were named by astronomers from Pakistan in 2019. They're also called HD 99109 and HD 99109 b respectively, but the Perwana and Shama names are less boring and recognized as official, so I'll use them.

So, Shama and Perwana make up a pretty typical stellar system. A small star orbited by a small gas giant. If it was just this, the system would be pretty unremarkable, we know of hundreds just like it.
What makes it unique is what could be there.

A study from 2007 suggests that Perwana could host Earth-sized trojan planets in its orbit.
But first, what is a trojan planet?

A trojan is a type of object caught in the orbit of a larger planet, trapped in places called Lagrange Points, where the gravity of a planet and the star it orbits are equal, making the objects stay in place. All the planets in our solar system have trojan asteroids caught in our orbits. Earth has a few, Jupiter has a few thousand. Theoretically, a planet could form in these Lagrange points, making the two planets share an orbit.
However, this is usually unstable, as the gravity of the two planets eventually cause them to collide.
However, with Perwana, its different. Because of the size of the planet and the star, as well as Perwana's distance, stable trojan planets are possible. They could even be the size of Earth.

These trojan planets are only hypothetical, and havent been seen, but they could even potentially be habitable, because Perwana is inside the outer edge of Shama's habitable zone, where the temperature is right for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface.
This means that, optimistically, Perwana could potentially have two Earth-sized habitable planets in its Lagrange points, immediately doubling the chances for life to exist in the system.

The loneliest stars in the Universe

Most stars form inside galaxies. A galaxy is just a massive conglomeration of millions or billions of stars with a lot of gas, dark matter, and usually, a really big black hole in the middle.
But galaxies arent peaceful. Galaxies collide with each other, merge, destroy each other, etc. When you look at the Universe on large time scales, the galaxies are constantly fighting each other. Our galaxy, the Milky Way is going to collide with the much bigger Andromeda Galaxy in 4 billion years.

Luckily, galaxy collisions are mostly safe. Galaxies are very spread out, so even when they collide, the chances of individual stars or planets hitting each other is very, very low.
Key word there is mostly safe.

Sometimes, gravitational disturbances from galaxy collisions can throw stars out of galaxies entirely. Like, for example, a star is in the path of the Andromeda Galaxy's central black hole as its moving toward the center of the milky way. the gravity from that black hole could slingshot the star out of the galaxy entirely.

These types of stars are called rogue stars, or stars without galaxies. They are the loneliest objects in the universe. Some of them could have planets, but those planets are equally lonely. For any aliens that could exist on a planet orbiting a rogue star, they would be trapped there forever, unable to ever leave or expand, because all the other stars would be too far away.

Two facts make this even scarier.

1. Some estimates say half of all the stars in the universe are rogue stars.
2. When the Milky Way/Andromeda collision happens in 4 billion years, its estimated that our solar system has a 12% chance of being ejected from the galaxy and becoming a rogue star.

Constellations vs. actual constellations 
another space post wow

I’m sure most of you know what a constellation is. It’s a group of stars in our sky that look like they make up some sort of shape. But what some people don’t know is that the stars in constellations don’t actually have anything to do with each other.

Most stars in constellations don’t stay in their constellations forever, and move around the galaxy on million year-long journeys. In just a few hundred thousand years, this “stellar drift” will make all of our constellations unrecognizable. The dinosaurs saw a completely different set of stars than we do now.
The exception to this rule is the Big Dipper. Unlike the other constellations, almost all the stars in the big dipper (except for Dubhe and Alkaid) actually are moving together and are close to each other. They’re a part of a large group of stars called the Ursa Major Moving Group. A moving group is a bunch of stars that formed at the same time in the same area, and are moving in the same direction.

The Sun is actually inside outskirts of the Ursa Major Moving Group right now. But it’s not a part of it, as the solar system is 12 times older than the rest of the moving group. A few million years ago, the Sun just so happened to wander into the moving group, but we’re on our way out now.

There are a lot of moving groups in our sky, and sort of act like constellations that are better than constellations, because the stars in them are actually linked. The most well known moving groups are the Beta Pictoris Moving Group, the Arcturus Stream, and the Pleiades. They’re named after the brightest stars in the group, that being Beta Pictoris and Arcturus (the Pleiades means “seven sisters” because there are seven bright stars in it)

The Sun used to be a part of its own moving group, but as it aged, the moving group eventually fell apart as the stars drifted around the galaxy. But some stars from our ancient moving group are still around today. The siblings of the Sun are somewhere in the Milky Way, waiting to be discovered.

So, TLDR:
Constellations are lame, moving groups are better

on this episode of telling minecraft players about planets: What the heck is TOI 849 b

TOI-849b is a real planet discovered by the TESS telescope. It orbits way too close to its star to be habitable and is a few thousand degrees in temperature. We know of a lot of planets like this, so this isn’t that surprising.

What is surprising is its size.
The radius of the planet is about 3x bigger than earth’s, smaller than Neptune and making it a rocky planet, not a gas giant.

Rocky planets are usually only 8x bigger than earth in mass, maximum. That means the biggest rocky planets are only about 8 times heavier than Earth. Two examples of that are the planets Janssen and Enaiposha, both rocky planets 8x the mass of earth (though Enaiposha is thought to be an ocean planet).

TOI 849b is forty times the mass of Earth

It’s a planet made of rocks that’s heavier than Uranus and Neptune combined. That’s really not possible. It’s by far the largest rocky planet we’ve ever found.

There’s only one theory we have to explain TOI 849b: it used to be a gas giant, but all the gas was blown away into space from the radiation from its star, leaving nothing but the planet’s massive core behind.
This would make TOI 849b a very rare class of planet called a Chthonia, or a gas giant planet without any gas, just a rocky core. So far, it being a Chthonia is the best explanation for how it exists.

Fun fact: there are things called cotton candy planets that actually exist

A cotton candy planet, also called a puffball planet or a superpuff, is a planet with extremely low density. For example, the planet Dimidium, which has a mass half of Jupiter's (meaning it "weighs" half Jupiter does) but is bigger than jupiter in radius. Its physically larger in size, but weighs less. This means its density is very low.
We dont really know why puffball planets get so big while being comparatively light, but we think it has something to do with their temperature. Dimidium, for example, is over 1,000 degrees. So, very hot gas giant planets like Dimidium are usually puffy.

bUT THEN KEPLER 51 HAD TO RUIN IT ALL

Kepler-51 is a star that has three known planets orbiting it. None of them have official names and so are just called Kepler-51 b, c, and d. All of them are about 3-6x heavier than Earth, which should make them rocky planets like Earth, but for some reason are the size of jupiter
(For comparison, jupiter is 300 times heavier than earth, but these planets arent even a tenth of that but are the size of jupiter)
this is the first system we know of to have three puffball planets. These planets, due to their mass, should be only a bit bigger than earth in radius (much smaller than neptune in that picture at the bottom) but for some reason aren't.

To complicate things even more, Kepler-51's planets arent even hot. Their temperatures range from 200-600 degrees fahrenheit, which sounds hot, but is very cold compared to Dimidium and the other puffball planets we've found. Those temperatures shouldnt be hot enough for puffball planets as we know them to form. So, we need a new theory for how these planets formed, and so far, we dont have one.
there are the planets compared to our solar system

the next few billion years will be fun

so many of you might know about the collision with the andromeda galaxy the milky way will have in about 4 billion years. If you don’t, here’s a quick explanation:
The milky way galaxy, our galaxy, is on a collision course with the bigger andromeda galaxy. The two will collide in about 4 billion years. The solar system will survive, and a new galaxy called Milkomeda will form.

But that’s not the only collision the milky way or andromeda will have.
In about 2.4 billion years, the milky way will collide with the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy that orbits the milky way like a moon orbits a planet.

This is less certain, but in about 2.8 billion years, andromeda will collide with the triangulum galaxy, the third largest galaxy in our local group. (andromeda is first, milky way is second, triangulum is third, large magellanic cloud is fourth)

Those are the major collisions we can look forward to, but there will also be a few minor collisions with small dwarf galaxies with only a few thousand stars.



The milky way and andromeda collision will be the last major collision for the local group ever. After that, all the remaining small dwarf galaxies will slowly merge with Milkomeda until the only thing left in our local group is one giant super-galaxy. No new galaxies will form or collide, because the expansion of the universe has made all other galaxies and the material to form them too spread out. Milkomeda will be the last galaxy humans will ever inhabit.

But yeah, galaxies aren’t super stable, they’re constantly colliding and merging and throwing stars everywhere

Just made a trailer for my Colonization of the Solar System series, here it is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS0CSCU_cNw

Third wall post in a day wow
whatever i thought this was worth sharing

This is ExoColors, a post someone made on Discord that I thought was cool. This shows what we believe to be the true colors of various gas giant planets around our galaxy.
Note that I don't think this was a professional, just someone far more knowledgeable than I am. Either way, it seems to be pretty accurate with the data I can find.

my personal favorite colored planet would be WASP-103b or Astrolabos. Tell me yours in the comments

I’ve made part 2 of my colonization of mars series
https://youtu.be/y8nAfKhTWkE
I’d say it’s pretty good

I also have the colonization of the moon and future of earth for this whole future of humanity project i’m doing, so any support is really appreciated

fun fact: the sun is one of the rarest types of stars in existence

Stars have a lot of different types, depending on their size, temperature, and brightness. The smaller the star, the more common it is, because smaller things are easier to form than bigger things. So, here’s the main types of stars:

M-Type (red dwarf): Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe. 75% of all stars are red dwarfs. They’re the smallest type of star. Red dwarfs can live for over a trillion years before running out of fuel, because smaller stars use their fuel more efficiently and slowly. An example of this star is Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. Even though its the closest, its so small you cant see it without a telescope.

K-Type (orange dwarf): Orange dwarfs are the second smallest type of star. 10% of stars are orange dwarfs, and they can live for about 50 billion years before dying. That’s older than the universe has existed for, so not many K-types have died yet. An example of this type of star is Copernicus, which is just barely visible without a telescope in extremely dark skies.

G-Type (yellow dwarf): this is the type of star the Sun is. Yellow dwarfs are pretty medium-sized, as far as stars go. Only about 7% of all the stars in the universe are yellow dwarfs, one of them is the Sun. They live for about 11 billion years, which is less time than the universe has existed, so most of these stars have already died, and new ones have formed in their place. The Sun has about 7 billion years left before it runs out of fuel and explodes.

F-Type (white main sequence): This is where stars get big enough you can't call them "dwarfs" anymore. F-types are bigger than the Sun and only make up about 3% of all the stars in the Universe. They only live for 2-4 billion years. An example of this star is Procyon, which is one of the brightest stars in our night sky.

A-Type: (blue main sequence): Only 0.5% of stars in the Universe are A-types, and they're so hot they've become blue in color. (the coldest stars are red and the hottest are blue, which i could explain later in a separate post.) They only live for a few hundred million years. An example of this star is Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky and easily visible without a telescope.

B-Type: (blue main sequence): This is where stars get very big, very hot, and very short-lived. B-Types are even more blue than A-types and only live for about 10 million years. That's shorter than the estimated amount of time it takes for planets to form, so B-Type stars die before they even form planets. Only about 0.1% of stars are B-types. An example of this star is Regulus, one of the brighter stars in the sky.

O-Type: (blue main sequence): This is the biggest type of main-sequence star. Main sequence is just a science term for "the star is not actively dying". Red giants are bigger, but they aren't main sequence, because red giants only happen when stars begin to die. O-Types only live for about a million years. To put that into perspective, dinosaurs are 65 times older than all the O-type stars in existence. O-types also dont live long enough to form planets, but even if they did, planets wouldnt be able to form because the radiation of this star is so powerful it blows away all the dust and gas needed to form planets. So even asteroids are probably very rare around stars like these. An example of this star is Alnitak, which is visible without a telescope.


So, there are a lot of stars bigger than the Sun, but they're very rare. Only 7% of stars are as big as the Sun, so you can say that the Sun is one of the rarest and biggest types of stars in the universe.

Fun fact: we still don’t know how planets form

We have the basic idea. Stars form out of collapsing dust clouds, we know that. The debris from that dust cloud is captured into orbit around the star, we also know that. But we don’t really know how that dust becomes planets.

We know that the dust will stick together with static electricity, eventually becoming large rocks. But, we don’t know what happens from there, because these rocks are too big for static electricity to attract them, but too small to have enough gravity to attract anything.
It’s called the Meter-Size Problem. And it still doesn’t have a very good explanation to this day.

Hey everyone, I just launched a youtube channel!
I'm going to be making a timeline for the colonization of the solar system. Maps for every planet and moon, one map per year, starting from the present to the far future.
So far, I've uploaded Part 1 of the Colonization of Mars, Colonization of the Moon, and the Future of Earth. I plan to make one video a week.
this is a personal project i've been wanting to start for a while, and now I am, and i'd really appreciate your support

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0c9WWYIoOI&t=404s
here's the link to Episode 1 of the Colonization of Mars.

fun fact: the sun is bluish-green

The sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star, but that name is kind of misleading because it isn’t actually yellow. It only looks yellow because of the way light travels through earth’s atmosphere (it’s the same reason the sun is red at sunset.)

In reality, the sun is nearly white. When you look at it from space, you don’t see yellow at all. It’s just white.
But, it’s not a perfect white. White is a combination of all colors, but all the colors aren’t even. In the sun, there is just slightly more blue and green light than all other colors. It’s nowhere near enough to notice, but it’s there.
And because of this extra blue and green light, there’s an argument to be made that the sun is actually turquoise.

Planet Minecraft is bringing back Member Interviews and is seeking community input. The interviews will feature questions with selected members, discussing their creations, inspirations, and more. The community is invited to suggest members they'd like to see interviewed and share feedback or suggestions on the upcoming series.

Read more and make suggestions here!

fun fact about planets
water is not the only liquid oceans could be made of

oceans don’t have to just be water. Oceans can be made of all kinds of stuff
Saturn’s moon Titan is the best example. It is the only other object in the solar system to have liquid on its surface, the first one being Earth. But Titan’s seas aren’t made of water, they’re made of liquid methane. Kraken Mare, Titan’s largest sea, is bigger than Earth’s Caspian Sea.

but there are so many other possibilities for oceans.
Around small failed stars called brown dwarfs (look at my post about Epsilon Indi for more info) oceans made of liquid oxygen could be common.
Around hotter, Venus-like planets, oceans made of sulfuric acid are possible. And on colder Mars-like planets with thick atmospheres, oceans of liquid carbon dioxide could form. On very cold Pluto-like objects, there could be seas of liquid nitrogen. And on ultra-hot planets like Janssen, oceans of lava are possible.

water isn’t the only thing to swim around in.

Telling minecraft players about planets 15

today’s planet is the ancient Methuselah

Methuselah is the unofficial nickname of PSR B1620−26 b, the oldest known planet in existence. It’s estimated to be 12.7 billion years old, about 3x older than the solar system.

Its 2x the size of Jupiter and takes about 100 years to orbit its two stars.

The first of its stars is an exotic type of star called a Pulsar. A pulsar is an extremely-fast spinning core of a star that went supernova long ago. Methuselah’s pulsar spins hundreds of times a second (meaning a day on this star lasts less than second) and is about 1.3x the weight of the sun. But because it’s so dense, the entire star is only about 15 miles wide.

The second star is also the remains of a dead star, but this one is only 1/3 the weight of the sun, spins way slower, and is about the size of Earth in radius.

Methuselah is also the first planet to ever be found in a globular cluster, which is like a mini-galaxy within a galaxy. Globular clusters can have thousands or millions of stars all packed extremely close together, with a huge black hole in the middle.

Space question for you

in my recent posts telling minecraft players about planets, i’ve been using proper names. For example, Janssen, Galileo, Brahe, Harriot, and Lipperhey, the five known planets in the Copernicus system, actually have two names. The proper names, the ones I have been using, are less known and used less than the other names.
These other names are just codes, and they are 55 Cancri b, c, d, e, and f. In my last post, the more common code names for Taphao Thong and Taphao Kaew are 47 Ursae Majoris b and c.

I don’t like these code names. They make these planets seem like just data points. They aren’t. These are real worlds that exist out in the universe. Which is why if the planet has a proper name, I will use that name instead of the code. Phobetor is just a better name than PSR B1257+12 c.
But, both names are equally official. The proper name and code name can both be used to describe the same planet. Most people use the code names, either because they don’t know the proper name or don’t think they’re official (they are officia).

So, what names should I use? The actual names, or just the more common code names? I prefer using the actual names but I want to know your thoughts