Spitzer finds evidence for planets with 4 suns

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brellis

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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>
 
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brellis

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A planet in that system might be like the one in Asimov's Nightfall<br /> <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>
 
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Thank you brellis,<br /><br />Absolutely wonderful. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Like this discovery very much indeed.<br /><br />It is further proof of the robustness of the planetary formation process.<br /><br />Not only that, just incredibily beautiful.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>
 
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