Kindgo
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July 16, 2002 Posted: 9:47 AM EDT (1347 GMT)
The strange-shaped cloud hides a star much like our own.
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By Richard Stenger
CNN
(CNN) -- A strangely shrouded star detected in a quiet corner of the Milky Way offers a glimpse into what our solar system might have looked like billions of years ago.
A cloudy ring surrounds the young sun-like star, prompting European Southern Observatory scientists to name it the Flying Saucer.
Planets could have started to form in the dust disk around the central star, which is located in the outskirts of a dark cloud about 500 light-years away, the ESO researchers said.
The space neighborhood is far away from the cosmic perils facing other young stars with developing planets, according to the scientific team.
"Most other young stars, especially those that are born in dense regions, run a serous risk of having their natal dusty disks destroyed by the blazing radiation of their more massive and hotter siblings in these clusters," the group said in a statement weeks ago.
The star system, about 1 million years old, could resemble our solar system in its infancy about five billion years ago, the scientists said. The star disk contains at least twice as much mass as the planet Jupiter.
"The 'Flying Saucer' object presents us with a striking portrait of our solar system in its infancy. With this object, nature has provided us a perfect laboratory for the study of both dust and gas in young circumstellar disks, the raw materials of planets," said ESO's Nicolas Grosso.
Usually young star disks are hard to spot. But there are exceptions, such as this one where the ring appears nearly edge-on from our perspective.
In this case, the main dust ring blocks out light from the central star, while additional material above and below the disk scatter the stellar light. The observed result is a dark ring flanked by two reflection clouds or nebulae.
Astronomers confirmed the existence of the peculiar-looking object with the Very Large Telescope and New Technology Telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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