Planet Factories
Search for Alien Worlds
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3m 27s
Astronomers now know that planets around other stars are plentiful. But they do not fully understand how they form and there are many aspects of the formation of comets, planets and other rocky bodies that remain a mystery. However, new observations exploiting the power of the ALMA telescope array are now answering one of the biggest questions: how do tiny grains of dust in the disc around a young star grow bigger and bigger — to eventually become rubble, and even boulders well beyond a metre in size? From ESO.
Up Next in Search for Alien Worlds
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Polarizing Planets
A new type of exoplanet finder comes on line in the next year. Working with the giant telescopes of the Chilean outback, the Very Large Telescope on Mt Paranal, it will distinguish the polarized light of planet atmospheres from the light of their parent stars. This new planet detection system off...
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Super Earths: 10 Major Discoveries
A Super Earth is a planet smaller than Neptune, but larger than Earth. There are no Super Earths in our solar system. But they may be the most common type of planet in our galaxy, according to data from the Kepler Space Telescope. Some have rock or ice cores wrapped in hydrogen and helium gas. Ot...
