<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>what are astronomers in general making of all this? Are they acknowledging any problem here or inventing new fudge factors to get things to work out according to standard theory?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
The latter. Fission is not under active consideration.
It will be interesting to see how they try to explain such a close giant planet when tidal forces are operating to carry it away from the parent star. Nebular drag is the obvious mechanism, but requires "fine-tuning" to drag a planet in so close but not all the way in because drag evolution is very fast. -|Tom|-
