Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born -- Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)
Posted on 03/04/2007 9:06:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The star CoKu Tau 4 is surrounded by a dusty disc, which is typical of very young stars. A star is born inside a dense cloud of gas and dust. Within this cloudy envelope, a flat, dusty disc encircles the star, and planets develop from the material in this disc. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph (IRS) observed a clearing in the dusty disc around CoKu Tau 4. The clearing is about 10 AU in size, or 10 times the Earth-Sun distance. The theory is that a planet orbiting CoKu Tau 4 at about 10 AU scooped up much of the inner disc material, and prevents the dusty outer ring of material from falling in towards the star. Such empty regions separating a star from its dusty disc have been seen before, but never in so young a star. Because CoKu Tau 4 is about one million years old, the possible planet would be even younger.
(Excerpt) Read more at astrobio.net ...
Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born -- Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)
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