A Planet with Planets? Spitzer Finds Cosmic Oddball
This artist's conception compares a hypothetical solar system
centered around a tiny "sun" (top) to a known solar system
centered around a star, called 55 Cancri, which is about the same
size as our sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, in combination with
other ground-based and orbiting telescopes, discovered the
beginnings of such a miniature solar system 500
light-years away in the Chamaeleon constellation.
Image source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC)
centered around a tiny "sun" (top) to a known solar system
centered around a star, called 55 Cancri, which is about the same
size as our sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, in combination with
other ground-based and orbiting telescopes, discovered the
beginnings of such a miniature solar system 500
light-years away in the Chamaeleon constellation.
Image source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC)
Whitney Clavin (Spitzer Science Center) writes:
Planets are everywhere these days. They have been spotted around more than 150 stars, and evidence is growing that they also circle "failed," or miniature, stars called brown dwarfs. Now, astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope say they have found what may be planets-in-the-making in the strangest of places -- around a brown dwarf that itself is the size of a planet.
The little brown dwarf, called Cha 110913-773444, is one of the smallest known. At eight times the mass of Jupiter, it is even smaller than several planets around other stars.
Yet, this tiny orb might eventually host a tiny solar system. Spitzer's infrared eyes found, swirling around it, a flat disk made up of dust that is thought to gradually clump together to form planets. Spitzer has previously uncovered similar planet-forming disks around other brown dwarfs, but Cha 110913-773444 is the true dwarf of the bunch.
posted by Fergie @ 12/01/2005 09:50:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home