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Hot Topic
Deep Space
Cosmic Evolution
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Discovering T Dwarfs
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/20/06 |
| Scientists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered and directly imaged a small brown dwarf star, 50 times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting with a planet around a Sun-like star. Such an arrangement has never been seen, the scientists say, leading to solar systems with distorted planetary orbits. |
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The Potential for Alien Oceans
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/12/06 |
| More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside Earth's solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, many covered in deep oceans with potential for life, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University. |
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Planet or Star?
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/07/06 |
| Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The conundrum is that it s also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star. |
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Life Cycles of Star Dust
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/05/06 |
| A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is helping astronomers understand how dust is recycled in galaxies. The tiny particles -- flecks of minerals, ices and carbon-rich molecules -- are everywhere in the universe, and are important for making stars, planets and even people. |
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Solar System Cities
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/16/06 |
| The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered nearly 2,300 planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud complex, a collection of turbulent star-forming clouds that includes the well-known Orion nebula. |
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Which Came First, Star or Planet?
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/11/06 |
| NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has for the first time identified the parent star of a distant planet discovered through gravitational microlensing. |
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Cosmic Chemical Complexity
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/09/06 |
| In just two years of work, an international research team has discovered eight new complex, biologically-significant molecules in interstellar space using the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia. |
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Free-floating Twins Test Theories
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/08/06 |
| The cast of exoplanets has an extraordinary new member. Using ESO's telescopes, astronomers have discovered an approximately seven- Jupiter-mass companion to an object that is itself only twice as hefty. Both objects have masses similar to those of extra-solar giant planets. |
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Cosmic Rain
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/06/06 |
| For the last 30,000 years, our planet has been hit by a constant rain of cosmic dust particles. Scientists have reached this conclusion after investigating the amount of the helium isotope 3He in cosmic dust particles preserved in an Antarctic ice core. |
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Planets as Brake Pads
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
07/28/06 |
| Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have found evidence that dusty disks of planet-forming material tug on and slow down the young, whirling stars they surround. |
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