Planets Can Form Around Hefty Stars
This artist's conception shows a Jupiter-sized planet forming from a disk of dust and gas surrounding a young, massive star. The planet's gravity has cleared a gap in the disk. Of more than 500 stars examined in the W5 star-forming region, 15 show evidence of central clearing that may be due to forming planets.
January 06, 2010
Most searches for planets around other stars, also known as exoplanets, focus on sun-like stars. Those searches have proven successful, turning up more than 400 alien worlds. However, sun-like stars aren't the only potential homes for planets. New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey confirms that planet formation is a natural by-product of star formation, even around stars much heftier than the sun.
For more details, please go to http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2010/pr201001.html .
