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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Scientists capture the image of a extraordinary object orbiting two stars giant


Two years ago, gave scientists reported in the journal Science the existence, 200 light years away from Earth, a planet with two suns, like the fictional world Tatooine , home of the young Skywalker of Star Wars. Later, astronomers found new examples of similar worlds and suggested that there may be millions of them. Now, an international team of scientists led by Philippe Delorme space, Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has taken what may be the first photograph of a planet orbiting two suns.


Equipment, published in arXiv and magazine progresses New Scientist, describes a very large object that rotates around a binary star system. This course world called 2MASS0103 (AB) by captured by the Very Large Telescope located in Chile in November 2012, is gigantic, its mass is 12 to 14 times that of Jupiter and appears to be gas. However, the researchers caution that perhaps it is not a planet, but a brown dwarf, a failed star small.

The dividing line between a brown dwarf and a planet is still debated among scientists, so the team can not ensure which one is the one in the picture. They believe that, as the body orbits its star very close to 12,500 million kilometers, possibly formed when the disc material around their stars was grouped due to gravitational instability, rather than through core accretion, as is common on other planets. Apparently, it is too large to have grown through the accumulation of new material that hits its surface.
More studies

To confirm whether the object of your picture is in fact a planet, but a brown dwarf, researchers will focus on learning more about their chemical composition. Should not be a planet, scientists would be the consolation of having obtained new knowledge to identify these planets in the future.

"Although only a handful of extrasolar planets have been discovered by direct imaging, each of these discoveries have had enormous impact on our understanding of planet formation, star formation and Physics," say the researchers.


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