Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time

Re:Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time by k3n on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @01:52PM (#4784816)

That's not the case for Earth though, is it? I had thought it was the tremendous pressures that kept the internal core molten. If it was radiation wouldn't it be enough to destroy us living in such close proximity?

I am barely qualified to call myself even an amateur astronomer, so sorry if I've misinterpreted anything.

edit: re-reading the passage, it sounds like it's a combination of both (bottom of p.245, 246).

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Re:Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time by eru on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @03:52PM (#4785490)

> If it was radiation wouldn't it be enough to destroy us living in such close proximity?

Different kinds of radiation differ by how deep they penetrate matter. Simplifying a bit you can imagine that for every atom the radiation passes, there's a probability that it interacts / gets absorbed.

Radiation that passes thousands of kilometres of rock without interaction will have a rather low probability of interacting with a mere metre (or so) of human.

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