Brown Dwarf is a star so small—some are hardly more massive than a large planet—that it never lit up. Astronomers scarcely even bothered to look for planets around such runts. Yet they have now seen hints of mini solar systems forming around brown dwarfs and similarly unlikely objects.
Image: Ron Miller
In Brief
- Few if any astronomers expected the sheer diversity of planets beyond our solar system. The most extreme systems are those that orbit neutron stars, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs.
- Neutron stars are born in supernova explosions, and planets orbiting them probably congealed from the debris. The bodies orbiting white dwarfs are the hardy survivors of the demise of a sunlike star. And brown dwarfs, themselves barely more massive than planets, nonetheless appear to be sites of planet formation.
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Video: Inprobable Planets
Among the most poignant sights in the heavens are white dwarfs. Although they have a mass comparable to our sun’s, they are among the dimmest of all stars and becoming ever dimmer; they do not follow the usual pattern relating stellar mass to brightness. Astronomers think white dwarfs must not be stars so much as the corpses of stars. Each white dwarf was once much like our sun and shone with the same brilliance. But then it began to run out of fuel and entered its stormy death throes, swelling to 100 times its previous size and brightening 10,000-fold, before shedding its outer layers and shriveling to a glowing cinder the size of Earth. For the rest of eternity, it will sit inertly, slowly fading to blackness.
As if this story were not gloomy enough, it gets worse. We and our colleagues have found more than a dozen white dwarfs in our galaxy that are orbited by asteroids, comets and perhaps even planets—entire graveyards of worlds. While the stars were still alive, they rose every day in the skies of these worlds. They gently warmed the soil and stirred the wind. Living organisms may have soaked up their rays. But when the stars died, they vaporized or engulfed and incinerated their inner planets, leaving only the bodies that resided in the chilly outposts. Over time the dwarfs shredded and consumed many of the survivors as well. These decimated systems offer a grim look at the fate of our own solar system when the sun dies five billion years from now.
This article was originally published with the title Improbable Planets.
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32 Comments
Add CommentElijah K - There will always be problems. There will always be poor people. There will always be people asking why we don't use this money for them. It is because, no matter how hard you try, you can't fix everything. It just doesn't happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlus, for those people I ask. What are you doing about it? In this case, are you buying a new Chrysler or GM product to help them? Are you urging your friends to? What are YOU doing to make a difference for these companies?
The answer I get to why people don't drop everything they are doing and fix the problems of the world comes down to this. Yes they care, but only enough to talk about it but not to do anything about it.
I fit in that group. I bought a Prius in late 2006. I don't regret my purchase because no American car company made a good quality car of that size that got anywhere near 45 mpg.
AAAAAH! HELLO! WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article is about sun/planetary system formations that have been discovered and postulated. A good, rare, real science article and these people are jabbering about their opinions of cars. SHAME ON YOU!
Having read this complete article, I'd certainly add my own reaction to what pgtruspace says here. Werner and Jura provide us with an extraordinary and inspiring vision of other systems in the universe that could well help us in an understanding of our own: suns failed, being born, dying with a bang or with a wimper. Possible planets orbiting lightless brown dwarfs, and white dwarfs stripped of their shells by titanic explosions. And all the first two commenters can think of are automobiles. Who cares whether OlsonBW bought a Prius or not?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Many used to discover lots of things for reasons that they wanted to explore. well it would be better to do some change for a better world we are living."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do you know this won't lead to some discovery that will cure some of the world's ills? You can't decide where you're going to direct your attention when it comes to science, the results aren't predictable. I submit: the Hubble telescope, long considered a boondoggle is directly responsible for the digital camera boom which has generated trillions of dollars of revenues for companies and trillions in tax revenues for countries in the last couple of decades. This industry has employed hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, not just in the US but around the world. Knowing that now, would you have said the same thing about the expense put into the research of Hubble?
Scientific research leads to gains orders of magnitude more than the money put into it.
As to Chrysler closing down its dealerships: good. One of the biggest issues American car manufactures are facing is the excess of dealerships in comparison to foreign companies. GM, for example has 6400 dealerships in the US in comparison to Toyota's 1200. Even were GM to run a highly efficient operation, there's no way it's not costing GM significantly more to have so many more dealerships. And, that excludes the revenue lost because GM dealerships end up competing against each other, instead of their competition thus lowering their profits further.
The problem with these industries isn't that scientists are studying exoplanets. It's that their management can't grasp the concept that efficiency leads to lower costs. I know how it is in the 4 Fortune 500 companies I've worked for, it can't possibly be any different at the auto manufacturers.
Oh, and before we start on the "it's the unions" argument, GM's total cost to employ people is approximately $22 billion/year. Their losses total $39 billion/year. Even if you brought back slavery, you still have to account for $17 billion/year in losses. It ain't the unions.
I am suprised that few astronomers expected to find the sheer diversity of planets outside our solar system.if was not so we would not exist.we are a billion to one chance phenomenon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should not be surprising the number of planets outside our solar system,we are a billion to one chance phenomenon
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoctoman, even those odds are still entirely reasonable. Let’s take a conservative estimate and rate the chances at a negligible one in a million. Checking this off against the known (and only the known) star systems, these odds still mean that the number of planets capable of producing life are still a staggering ten billion. Using this same odds-against method of calculation, this in turn means that the number of actual advanced civilizations in our own local Milky Way galaxy could still be some ten thousand. These odds hardly rate us as a 'chance phenomenon'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisambertooth have you really grasped that,if we were not placed in the narrow band in our solar system with a right size moon in the right place with jupiter the right size and place and if we were not in the right place in our galaxy life as we know it could not exist,along with a million other variables,too many to include but I guess,as with other believers you are know you are right.Where at eighty years young I am just a awestruck baby.No offence intended,enjoy your trip.remember where there is hope there can be life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoctoman, what on earth (and in the eyes of science) represents 'the right sized moon'? What, in your estimation, would be a 'wrong sized moon'? And what, using scientific criteria, is 'the right place in our galaxy'? You glibly mention 'a million other variables, too many to include'. You originally brought up odds of our planet being a 'chance phenomenon'. I refuted that possibility with further odds which you have chosen to ignore. This is a science website. If you have any science to support what you say, then please cite it for others to check, rather than pussyfooting around to avoid using words like 'God'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe cling against reason to the idea that we are in some way unique. Perhaps because it undermines our human ego to realise otherwise. Once we based that uniqueness upon a geocentric universe, with everything (literally) revolving around anthropocentric us. When that view retreated before the scientifically correct model, we sought refuge in the idea that we were unique as a species, and apart from the animal kingdom. And when science in its turn placed us among the other species, we found comfort in the 'Goldilocks' planetary model: not too hot, not too cold, just the right distance from the sun, etc. Now that Hubble and Spitzer have shown us, not just planets, nor even stars, but whole galaxies without number, we still cling to the 'specialness' (well, some of us do, anyway) that we groundlessly feel is our birthright.
For what it's worth, I am not so much younger than yourself. But age does not necessarily have any bearing upon whether what one is advocating is based upon sound science or mere opinion. It is regrettable that you chose the tone of reply which you have. If you preface a remark with the words 'no offense intended', and then follow it with a presumptuous statement such as 'remember where there is hope there can be life' to someone whom you do not even know, and who is only marginally your junior, then you can better forget about not intending offense.
In any case, if hope is universal, then your own statement confirms that life in the universe must indeed be plentiful, and we are by no means either special or even unique.
I have reread your comment and you believe that in just in our own galaxy there could be ten thousand advanced civilizations .Wow well bless my soul.I am gobsmacked .you can borrow my star trek annual,if you like.no offence,ect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis front cover picture looks a lot like the front cover of my book 'The Dark Star', published by Timeless Voyager Press in 2005. The book discusses the possibility of a Nemesis type object in the outer solar system, in the form of a sub-brown dwarf binary companion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI speculate that such a binary companion object might have its own planets, warmed like the Galilean moons are warmed by their proximity to Jupiter. This is very much in keeping with the ideas in the Scientific American article. I take it as a compliment. Thank you Scientific American! I shall get hold of a copy as a keepsake.
Author Andy Lloyd, Gloucester, England
I would like to thank Werner and Jura for a fascinating insight into a new and exciting area. Brown dwarf planets with life possibilities? Who would have thunk it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[I will also take the opportunity to apologize for those who do the equivalent of ignoring the groups discussion that they are invited to at the party.]
@ octoman:
"as with other believers you are know you are right."
You seem to be inserting irrelevancies of religion into a discussion of planet and life possibilities. As the article describes in detail, we are a long way from knowing the possibilities for life, but the trend is that the more we know the easier it seems.
Even without that knowledge we know that life "as we know it" is easy to achieve, from the short time interval between Earth coalescing to fossil traces.
In fact, if it wasn't for that the older rocks are hard to come by due to plate tectonics we would know more. As for now AFAIU scientists observe traces of photosynthesis as soon as surviving rocks are in record. (It's googleable.)
"if we were not placed in the narrow band in our solar system with a right size moon in the right place with jupiter the right size and place and if we were not in the right place in our galaxy life as we know it could not exist"
None of that is constraining much or at all.
The "narrow band" goes to Mars, which would be habitable if larger and is marginally habitable for bacterias.
A "right size moon"? No, see the point of Mars habitability above.
"jupiter the right size and place"? No, for example the Late Heavy Bombardment was survivable, see <a href="http://isotope.colorado.edu/2009_Abramov_Mojzsis_Nature.pdf">last weeks paper by Abramov et al </a> on that.
"the right place in our galaxy". Well, duh!
FYI, currently the galactic habitable zone is ~ 10 % of stars and increasing with time, see <a href="http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverFennerGibson.pdf">2004 paper by Lineweaver et al</a>. Plenty of stars in a galaxy of 10^11 - 10^12 of them.
"along with a million other variables" Now you are just dreaming up stuff without evidence whatsoever.
Just to show how futile finetuning arguments are, Victor Stenger have studied a small set of 4 parameters that are needed to roughly specify the features of the universe (electron and proton mass, EM and strong interaction strength.) Over ten orders of magnitude variation, he still finds stars and planets, and that half of the stars will be old enough to produce life. (See "God - The Failed Hypothesis", V Stenger.)
"the right place in our galaxy".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot; I was also intending to point out that this evidences that the whole "million other variables" made-up-stuff is based on religious anthropic arguments, which famously inverts basic probabilities to claim that a priori beliefs ("we are unique ... ") are a posteriori constraints on knowledge ("... so we must be unique".)
None of which a little study of logic, or better: probability theory, or best: science, would reveal for the sham it is.
Well, octoman, your last comment is at least notable for its complete lack of argument (where is your response to my 'wrong sized moon' question?). But to be clear (which seems to be necessary in your case): I did not say that I 'believed' what I wrote. I said that such odds-against calculations have been made. In fact, my estimate is deliberately conservative, as I mentioned. The Drake Equation (Dr. Frank Drake, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics) puts the estimate at some one million civilizations within our own galaxy. Other methods of calculating, such as the more recent and probably more accurate theory of panspermia (Duncan Forgan, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh), put the figure at almost thirty eight thousand advanced civilizations. But whoever is doing the calculating, and by whatever method, the results suggest that our own local galaxy is teeming with advanced life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSnide remarks about Star Trek annuals do nothing to serve your views. On the contrary, that you seem to find it necessary to resort to such remarks painfully underscores your lack of them.
Well .first right size moon,do you think the moon has no effect on the earth?and if there was no moon,there would possibly have been no intelligent life on earth? it would have been too unstable?to small same effect too big .we would all be drowned or be fish.Is there a right place in the galaxy. Well if we were not on the edge of the galaxy our solar system would be so disrupted because there is so much turmoil at its centre,there would be no solar system.I did not say there are no other planets with life on them .just that I think that they would be very rare .I believe anywhere condition are right life will occur.(read Sir Fred Hoyles The Intelligent Universe) Jupiter! if it wasn't there we would have been bombarded out of existance a billion years ago . I just said that there must be billions galaxys for life to get enough suitable places,As for other reasons.Extintions.The dinosaus would still be the prime life form on earth,if it had been not for their extinction. Also intelligence is not a essential for life plenty of life forms survive without it.I have just come to a different conclusion than you have. I am only interested in fact,not theories.I do not believe in the Big Bang theory either .it is too close to the religious veiw for me. So ten thousand sites in the universe, may be but the site has to just right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoctoman: "So ten thousand sites in the universe, may be but the site has to just right."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of which just goes round in a circle to what you originally claimed: that we are 'a billion to one chance phenomenon'. To which I replied (and have since cited sources, as has Torbjörn Larsson, OM) that even those odds mean that life, and even intelligent life, is common. You seem now to be arguing against yourself and what you have previously stated.
No moon, no life? So what? We just would not have been here to comment on SciAm, that's all. No K-T impact? Well, maybe dinosaurs would still have been around, and Dale Russell's hypothetical Troodon descendant would have been an actuality. But again, so what? The whole panoply of life on Earth is a barrelfull of ifs and buts, but what is your point? Do you even have one? And don't come with that old 'facts not theories' chestnut. If you cared about sound science you would know that theories actually can contain facts, and you'd almost certainly have no problems with the Big Bang, or with what is described in the accompanying commendable science article.
What is your point, octoman?
ambertooth, I give you up it is like talking to a jehovah witness they have the answers they like,and will not listen to any others. I dont have one point,I have many if as you believe there 10,000 advanced civilizations which could easily be billions of years in advance of us in technology,why haven't we been invaded or contacted by now,(I just noticed I am surrounded by jehovah witnesses.)Help I am off to another planet where people are allowed express a opinion without being insulted .an I only expressed suprise that Werner and Jura did not expect the amount of planets they found
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoctoman: "..I am off to another planet where people are allowed express a opinion without being insulted.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat petulant nonsense. You make snide remarks about my reasoned comments (which cite accredited sources), and now you claim to be 'insulted'? How? It has taken Torbjörn Larsson, OM and myself several consecutive comments just to attempt to get you to clarify what your position actually is on this, and truth to tell, I'm still not at all sure that I know what that stance is even now. That you claim that I "will not listen to any other answer" makes me crack up. Why? Because so far, "any other answer" is what you singularly have failed to provide. Note that your 'perfect placement in the galaxy' plus your 'moon' and 'Jupiter' and other arguments have been specifically refuted by Torbjörn Larsson, OM with cited references, to which you have made no response.
You propound a highly anthropocentric view, both of the universe generally and of our solar system in particular, without justifying either view when these have been queried, both by Torbjörn Larsson, OM and by myself. You appear to object on assumed quasi-religious grounds to the scientifically calculated fecundity of the universe, and to the random fortuitous placement of our planet, and yet you say that you "do not believe in the Big Bang theory" because you claim that it is "too close to the religious view", without expanding on what you mean by this, either in terms of the science or of religion.
"It's debate, Jim, but not as we know it.."
I find that persons that must site other savants for their own opinions are not intelligent enough to reach a position from their own study of the facts, and they hate and deride those that do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr maybe they are just verbal bully's??
Not so long go astronomers believed our own solar system came into existence and evolved in a slow and steady manner. They assumed that all other star systems were more or less the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly in the last few years have they accepted the fact that our own planet/moon binary was formed by a disaster, even though one of the formost astronomers of the 1940's correctly explained it with the facts known at that time.( maybe some day they will realize the total ramifications of that event.)
Our own solar system shows the effects of at least 3 major encounter events.
I find the view of astronomers that other star systems are not what they expect based on our own system is strange at best.
The formation of a star system is a chaotic crap shoot that is barraged by interlopers and only the immense distances give some time between major events.
Given the right conditions and time life is inevitable. Intelligent space faring life is very rare.
We haven't made it yet.
pgtruspace: "I find that persons that must site other savants for their own opinions are not intelligent enough to reach a position from their own study of the facts, and they hate and deride those that do. Or maybe they are just verbal bully's??"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot necessarily. Citation of sources is part of what makes science accredited and credible, and is expected. Pick up any science paper and you'll be able to read all the listed sources which the author has cited. It is use of uncited sources which is frowned upon. Within this recognised framework individuals naturally are still free to supply all the originality of thinking which they can muster.
But to pick up on your comment about planets: I see the surprise in diversity of planets as being something of an analog for the moons in our solar system. We expected the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and the other gas giants to be much like Earth's moon, but just look at the diversity which has been revealed over the last thirty-odd years. It looks like our investigation of other planetary systems is going much the same way.
I find it interesting how people are defending the ordinariness of our solar system, when all our direct observations to day of extrasolar systems has shown it to be actually quite unique. You aren't ordinary when EVERY OTHER solar system you look at is radically different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the second point about a large satellite, SA had an article not too long ago where it was recently discovered that a large natural satellite (with respect to the primary) was necessary to stabilize axis of rotation. That without it, the world's axial tilt would wobble all over the place over a few hundred thousand years, greatly reducing the probability of life.
We have already discovered that our sun is rather unique among main sequence stars, both in metallicity and in relatively stability.
The evidence is mounting that our solar system actually is quite unusual and well outside the ordinary.
frgough, your first paragraph contains an unfounded assumption that our system is 'quite unique'. But it's not exactly as if all the data is now in. On a uniqueness scale, how can we yet know? We cannot. The point in your second paragraph might be so, but if a large satellite body is necessary to maintain the axial equilibrium of a parent planet, then why do we not see this instability in our near-neighbor planets which have no such moons? In any case, the point demonstrates nothing beyond the fact that were this so, and were Earth's planetary motion too unstable to allow life to evolve, then we would not be here. No you. No me. No Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReferring to previous comments here, it is not so much a case of "defending the ordinariness of our solar system", as of cautioning against the assumption that our planet's uniqueness (the universal degree of which is still undetermined) has to do with quasi-religious reasons, which have no place in the science.
ambertooth,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswould you prefer I use the word exceptionally rare? The fact is we have something like 100 extrasolar planets identified now in many different star systems and NONE of them even remotely resemble our solar system. In fact, the primary pattern seems to be large worlds orbiting very close to the primary.
Unless you are trying to tell me we've picked a non-random selection, the argument that our solar system is typical is a pretty far stretch.
Regarding your second point, read the SA article. It discusses the fact that Mars likely was sitting on its side a few hundred thousand years ago precisely because it doesn't have a large stabilizing satellite.
The reason the "ordinariness of our universe" is such a subject of debate is because one of the fundamental assumptions of cosmology is that we are not unique in any manner whatsoever.
Your fear of "religion" creeping into science is a separate issue, which, is, however, related, in that you are so terrified of it, you will deliberately ignore evidence that might give it any kind of toehold into what you consider sacred territory.
frgough: "Your fear of "religion" creeping into science is a separate issue, which, is, however, related, in that you are so terrified of it, you will deliberately ignore evidence that might give it any kind of toehold into what you consider sacred territory."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegrettable that you have opted to use such juvenile posturing. How in the world did you come up with the ludicrous idea that I am 'terrified' of religion? You don't even know me, so instead of jumping to such erroneous conclusions, you'd do wiser to reach for the true reason which my stance indicates, which is simply that religion, being irrefutable, has no place in the conclusions of science. Yes, my reason really is that straightforward.
"The fact is we have something like 100 extrasolar planets identified now in many different star systems and NONE of them even remotely resemble our solar system."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot true AFAIU. IIRC it seems that our system, like these others, have resulted according to a principle that puts planets as close as they can be. I.e. you can't squeeze another planet in anywhere and expect the system to remain stable.
As regards the other systems NONE of them has yet any Earth, Mars or Mercury sized planets observed. But that is due to current observational constraints. What appears as "the primary pattern" may easily change when these planets and low mass M stars are surveyed.
Already it seems that the many M stars will have the majority of systems, and that they resemble the Earth system:
"It is noteworthy that many of the detected systems deviate from theoretical predictions. Whereas four out of eight contain only lightweight planets in the mass range of Hot Neptunes and icy Super Earths, the other four (GJ 876, GJ 832, GJ 849, GJ 317) harbor gas giants similar in mass to those in most other extrasolar systems. One of the two giant planets orbiting GJ 876 contains more mass than all of the Solar System's planets combined, while <b>each of the single detected giants of GJ 832, GJ 849, and GJ 317 bears an intriguing resemblance to our own Jupiter. The minimum masses of these planets range from 0.6 to 1.2 MJUP, comparable to the Solar System's gas giants, and all three orbit outside their systems' ice lines, again like Jupiter and Saturn.</b> Less than 10% of exoplanets so far detected around Sun-like stars have comparable orbits." [ http://www.deepfly.org/TheNeighborhood/7c8-RedStars.html, "Last update September 2008". My bold.]
Oh, and note the "[L]ess than 10% of exoplanets so far detected around Sun-like stars have comparable orbits." So if there is another 10 % ratio against an Earth type system (with a Jupiter analog), and you care about the solar size for some religious reason (obviously) not connected to observing life, it still leaves a massive amount of systems resembling ours in that respect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, just registering so I can comment on articles in the future. New subscriber to the magazine and loving it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as life goes we are assuming the same chemistry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the posting about Chrysler goes and the automakes goes. It realy has nothing to do with Astronomy. however the discoryies from space program have included the microprocessor . Integraterd circuits and many of the small motors and phenumatic devices and sensor used in cars came from space technology.
The problem is one of appication. We as a country have given away our technoolgy t o China , Japan , Korea and any one else we can think of. All for saving a buck at the expense of Americans livly hoods. This is the frustation of the 1st two authors. I understand this after being sold out by the greed & excess of high technology. Isn't it funny we are is a so called free & open market place but our products cannot compeate? We used to make the best and every one bouth from the US. Now the US is mocked as having inferious products when we were the ones who developled the very technologies that are used against us. Ironic isn't it.
I love Astronomy and I think this is a great article but I wanted to comment on that posting even though it does not have much to do with it in one sense until we need to plan develop launch a new mission & develop technolgy that will be cheapened and given to our rivals and used against us. We are to trusting of a countrty and this is where we get into trouble.
What type of surface and atmospheric conditions would be likely on a planet orbiting a brown dwarf? It's probably safe to assume they would orbit close enough to be tidally locked. But could they be warm enough, for long enough, for life to arise? Anyone care to make a guess?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople here seem to assume "life" and "intelligent life" = life as we know it. . . . effectively life and more narrowly intelligent life like us has a narrow "Goldilocks zone" . . But - (to people who do not understand large numbers, as in most people) rare/very rare is comparatively common giving the insanely large # of stars . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd that is JUST for "Life/Intelligent life" as we know it . . . it only goes up if we find life has much bigger parameters then our little sample suggests (every year we find this true to another degree even WITHIN our small sample).
So, effectively ALL these estimates are bound to be quite conservative. And anyone here saying . . life needs X, Y, Z can only comment on our type. (ie intelligent life requires a large moon - "requires"? we do not know it may help with some types - and hinder others)
Then we need to expand/modify our concept of intelligence . . Since I expect any intelligent life we do find would probably have issues with it. :P (since we can't seem to recognize various levels of intelligence in other nonhuman life on earth)
There are (at the bare minimum) billions of galaxies with billions of stars apiece with a unknown number of possible crucibles for life . .
(ps our current look at exo-planets is skewed, we see the systems we do because of limited tech - so making ratios of what we currently see is useless)
I find it odd that a magazine and website devoted to science and learning wants to get paid in order to share science and learning. As such, I have not read the entire article. Fuck you, Scientific American, for showing us why science in the U.S. is failing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this