NASA's Spitzer spots clump of planet-forming material around young star

India Business Blog ^ | September 24, 2009 | ANI

[SunkenCiv]

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has... observed infrared light coming from one such disk around a young star, called LRLL 31, over a period of five months. To the astronomers' surprise, the light varied in unexpected ways, and in as little time as one week... One possible explanation is that a close companion to the star -- either a star or a developing planet -- could be shoving planet-forming material together, causing its thickness to vary as it spins around the star... said James Muzerolle of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland[,] "This is a unique, real-time glimpse into the lengthy process of building planets," ...The stars are about two to three million years old and about 1,000 light-years away, in the IC 348 star-forming region of the constellation Perseus.

[SunkenCiv]

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[cripplecreek]

It would be interesting to see how much it has formed in the last 1000 years. Maybe more than expected, maybe less.

[doug from upland]

Hmmmmmmm, another guy named Spitzer dumped material around a young star.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[and ewwww!]

[HighlyOpinionated]

Actually, it’s the New Jerusalem.

It’ll get here right before Israel nukes Iran.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (NIV)

[SunkenCiv]

It had better hurry, it’s 1000 light-years away.

[SunkenCiv]

Well, that’s out, but it should be interesting to take a look once a month for, say, fifty years.

Of course, by then we may have something new to travel in...

[cripplecreek]

Of course, by then we may have something new to travel in...

1/8 light speed seems like a reasonable 100 year goal. In fact I think speed should be as big or even bigger of a priority than landing a man on Mars. After all, many of the problems with space travel are closely tied to transit time.

[SunkenCiv]

Probably in ten years (if there was a NASA/gubmint commitment to do so) a probe could be sent on its way to Alpha Centauri (the closest sunlike star) using one or more of the proposed systems. It would have to be crewless, and one would like to think be able to be operating and able to send data back here, fifty to one hundred years from now when it makes its too-fast journey through that star system.