Astronomers have found signs of what may be the youngest planet known, plus the first signs ever of organic compounds in a region of dust that could evolve into a planet-forming system.
NEW PLANET? An artist’s conception of a young planet, larger than Jupiter, as it orbits the star CoKu Tau 4. Astronomers didn’t see the planet directly but inferred its existence from a gap in the star’s dust cloud, using infrared measurements from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
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