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NASA Article<br /><font color="orange"> <br />MISSION NEWS <br />Planets with Four Parents? Spitzer Shows it's Possible<br /><br /> 07.24.07<br /><br />How many stars does it take to "raise" a planet? In our own solar system, it took only one – our sun. However, new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that planets might sometimes form in systems with as many as four stars.<br /><br />Astronomers used Spitzer's infrared vision to study a dusty disk that swirls around a pair of stars in the quadruple-star system HD 98800. Such disks are thought to give rise to planets. Instead of a smooth, continuous disk, the telescope detected gaps that could be caused by a unique gravitational relationship between the system's four stars. Alternatively, the gaps could indicate planets have already begun to form, carving out lanes in the dust. </font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>