January 8, 2008

New planet confirms proto planet theory

by Brian Turner

A newly formed planet orbiting a young star offers the first observational evidence for the long-held theory that planets form early, within the first ten million years of a parent star’s life, according to a new study.

Until recently all of the 250-plus planets outside our solar system have been found around much older stars—a hundred million years of age or more.

Now a research team led by Johny Setiawan of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, has found a newborn extrasolar planet—or exoplanet—around a star that’s between eight million and ten million years old.

The exoplanet, which is ten times more massive than Jupiter, is still linked to the dusty disk of material surrounding its parent star.

With this new find, Setiawan said, so-called protoplanetary disks have at last earned their name.

The new planet’s star, known as TW Hydrae, sits about 180 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

Setiawan and colleagues describe the findings in this weeks’ issue of the journal Nature.

Discuss this in the Interfaith forums

Story link: New planet confirms proto planet theory

 

 

Previous: « Vanuatu skull reveals past on Polynesians
Next: The Politics of Faith »

Visited 15647 times, 20 so far today

FEATURE: Hindu Texts

Explore the most ancient writings of India, with our complete collection of the most venerated of all Hindu literature, the Upanishads, Vedas, and Bhagavad Gita.

 

FORUM: The Fall?

Is the Fall of Humanity an inevitable cross-cultural symbol - or is it strictly for some religions only? Check out the discussion in the forum: Paradise and the Fall.