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Hot Topic
Deep Space
New Planets
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| Young Planet Challenges Old Theories |
| Topic: New Planets |
05/28/04 |
| The Spitzer Space Telescope has detected youngest planet ever found, claim NASA scientists. Planets are thought to take millions of years to form after a star is born, but discovery of a million-year old star with planet already in orbit around it means scientists may have to rethink planetary formation models. |
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| New Planet, Magnified |
| Topic: New Planets |
04/16/04 |
| The gravity of a star can act as a lens, focusing and intensifying the light of a star behind it. The combined light from the two stars causes that point in the night sky to suddenly appear much brighter. For the first time, a planet has been discovered using this "gravitational microlensing." technique. |
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| Gem Sorting for the Next Earth |
| Topic: New Planets |
01/21/04 |
| Which star is most like our own Sun? This intriguing question offers a chance to test hypotheses about what places might make for a good Earth-like, habitable planet. The best found so far may well be the 37th most westerly star in the constellation, Gemini, called 37 Gem. |
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| Habitability: Betting on 37 Gem |
| Topic: New Planets |
10/09/03 |
| What star meets the current best guesses for habitability? This fascinating question is part of an ongoing research survey, in preparation for NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission. The answer, according to the largest such classification so far attempted, is the 37th brightest star in the constellation, Gemini. |
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| Discovering New Worlds |
| Topic: New Planets |
09/09/03 |
| Few modern scientific adventures can rival what is currently the task of those discovering new planets. While most of the hundred or so new worlds found so far have been found using the planet's inferred influence on its parent star's gravitational wobble, a few have been discovered as the planet eclipses its own star. |
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| Star Bright: Part II |
| Topic: New Planets |
08/06/03 |
| In Part I of this article, the differences between typical stars, brown dwarfs and sub-brown dwarfs were discussed. Stars have a mass of 75 Jupiters or greater, brown dwarfs have a mass between 13 and 75 Jupiters, and sub-brown dwarfs are less than 13 Jupiter masses. |
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| Star Bright: Part I |
| Topic: New Planets |
08/04/03 |
| Starlight aside, one way to distinguish between stars and planets is to have them weigh in. Stars need a hefty amount of mass to fuse hydrogen, while planets are mere dust motes in comparison. But over past few years, astronomers found planetary-mass objects that may have been born as stars. |
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| Ancient Planet Discovered |
| Topic: New Planets |
07/14/03 |
| Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have identified the oldest and most distant known planet orbiting two burned-out stars. Its sky location in the constellation Scorpius places the planet as the M4 globular cluster. The discovered world is also the only planet found to orbit around a binary star system. |
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| Similar Solar System at 90 Light Years |
| Topic: New Planets |
07/07/03 |
| Astronomers have found the first sun-like star with a giant gas planet in an orbit similar to Jupiter's. At a distance of 90 light-years, the similar solar system to ours means that this gas giant could attract most of the dangerous impact debris. |
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| Water Worlds |
| Topic: New Planets |
01/02/03 |
Italian astronomers report on a method for water detection on extrasolar planets and cometary clouds, and their shortlist of candidates with promising initial findings from the 32-meter Medicina radio telescope.
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