# Looking for Planets in all the wrong places **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285 "2012-01-12T14:51:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/21 "2012-01-13T22:51:47Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > I don’t know enough to imagine it. Can you expound on this? I’d love to know what that would look like. I don’t think there’s all that much to imagine. Jupiter and Saturn both have moons heated by tidal forces, including Io, Titan and Europa. “Heated” in this sense still means really freakin’ cold (especially at the surface), but better than nothing. The key is that you still have substances moving around between the core and the surface. You may or may not have an atmosphere, and the thickness and composition clearly vary even in our own solar system. If you went swimming, it would probably be liquid methane or ammonia; liquid water would only be underground. Volcanoes would not be molten rock, but might have things as hot as liquid water (which would immediately freeze). It would be dark all the time, like a moonless night on Earth. You’d only be able to see the planet you orbited because it would block out stars behind it (like a new moon on earth). You would not have weather-related seasons like we do on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/22 "2012-01-14T00:43:31Z")
Well, that doesn’t sound very friendly. Thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/23 "2012-01-14T04:49:39Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > \ > > I think that the prevailing thinking is that the orientations of planetary systems will be pretty much random relative to the galactic plane. (I recall hearing that this is the case for binary star systems, at least.) **Also note that the Solar System’s ecliptic plane is nowhere near the galactic plane — it’s about 60° off.** That would be the closest comparable galaxy, the [Andromeda Galaxy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision) However, it’s still not clear whether it will actually collide with us. We probably need another few thousand years of data before we know for sure. This would mean that the aliens out there would have a hard time detecting us, right? Somehow that’s comforting. ---
**Author:** ![SmithCommaJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@SmithCommaJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmithCommaJohn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/24 "2012-01-14T05:27:54Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > This would mean that the aliens out there would have a hard time detecting us, right? Somehow that’s comforting. It would depend entirely on where they’re observing us from, and what methods they’re using to detect planets. If there’s a Kepler-like spacecraft launched by a civilization living on one of the Kepler planets, and it’s pointed at a region of the sky that includes our sun, they’d be able to find us without much trouble. Well, they’d at least know that there’s a solar system containing eight planets, one of which is in the habitable zone - assuming they define “habitable” in roughly the same way we do. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/25 "2012-01-14T06:08:13Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Probably because our galaxy formed from a large spinning disk of gas and dust, so things tend to stay in that plane unless there are collisions or perturbations. I don’t think our galaxy has (yet) to collide with another galaxy, and that’s when things tend to get really weird. Actually I understand our galaxy is believed to have collided with and consumed multiple “dwarf galaxies”. For example, skimming Wikipedia (this thread got me going on the astronomical articles there), I see that the [Sagittarius dwarf elliptical galaxy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_Dwarf_Elliptical_Galaxy) is believed to be in the process of being absorbed by the Milky Way, and the [Omega Centauri](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Centauri) globular cluster is suspected to be the remnant of a long-consumed dwarf galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/26 "2012-01-14T06:34:34Z")
> [@SmithCommaJohn](#): > > If there’s a Kepler-like spacecraft launched by a civilization living on one of the Kepler planets, and it’s pointed at a region of the sky that includes our sun, they’d be able to find us without much trouble. Sorry, they would not. The Kepler mission is looking at a single region which is not in the ecliptic (so as to avoid the Sun shining into the CCD and blinding the spacecraft). A Kepler-type mission around another star would have to be very close to our ecliptic to detect planets here. ---
**Author:** ![SmithCommaJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@SmithCommaJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmithCommaJohn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285/27 "2012-01-14T20:06:49Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Sorry, they would not. The Kepler mission is looking at a single region which is not in the ecliptic (so as to avoid the Sun shining into the CCD and blinding the spacecraft). A Kepler-type mission around another star would have to be very close to our ecliptic to detect planets here. I stand corrected. Ignorance fought. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-planets-in-all-the-wrong-places/609285.md?page=1)