Alien planet.Talk about a Kodak moment! NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the first large optical orbiting observatory. Built from 1978 to 1990 at a cost of $1.5 billion, the HST (named for astronomer E. P. Hubble) was expected to provide the clearest view yet obtained of the universe. has snapped the first picture ever of a planet beyond our solar system--the first visible proof that planets exist elsewhere in the universe. Called TMR-1C, the planet lies in the constellation Constellation, ship Constellation (kŏnstĭlā`shən), U.S. frigate, launched in 1797. It was named by President Washington for the constellation of 15 stars in the U.S. flag of that time. Taurus, about 450 light-years from Earth. (A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 9.5 trillion One thousand times one billion, which is 1, followed by 12 zeros, or 10 to the 12th power. See space/time. (mathematics) trillion - In Britain, France, and Germany, 10^18 or a million cubed. In the USA and Canada, 10^12. km.) Scientists have found evidence of other planets before, but the blazing light of stars prevented them from photographing one. But TMR-1C sits 209 billion km (130 billion mi) away from its two parent stars (called a binary-star system). The planet is also huge, possibly at least three times bigger than Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet. Such planets are called gas giants, which scientists think are the first planets to emerge from leftover colliding gases and dust after a star's birth. What's surprising is how quickly TMR-1C may have formed. Scientists thought gas giants took 10 million years or longer to evolve. But astronomer Susan Terebey, who discovered the planet, thinks TMR-1C took only 300,000 years to form. If gas giants don't take as long to form as scientists once thought, then many more of them may exist in the universe. Researchers scouring scouring characterized by scour. scouring disease a colloquial name for secondary nutritional copper deficiency. for life outside the solar system solar system, the sun and the surrounding planets, natural satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets that are bound by its gravity. The sun is by far the most massive part of the solar system, containing almost 99.9% of the system's total mass. are thrilled by the discovery. "Where there are gas giants, we hope to find smaller planets like Earth that can support life," says Alan Boss Alan P. Boss (born July 20, 1951, in Lakewood, Ohio) is an American astrophysicist. Educated at the University of South Florida and the University of California, Santa Barbara, Boss is now a world leader in stellar and planetary system formation and the study of extrasolar planets, of the Carnegie Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C. After all, our solar system contains both gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn and smaller, rocky planets, like Earth and Mars. |
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