Rogue’s gallery of dusty star systems reveals exoplanet nurseries
The Gemini Planet Imager on the Gemini South telescope looked at 104 young, nearby stars, 10-100 million years old, in search of debris disks. It found 26, 25 of which had inner holes indicating a planet. These debris rings, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our solar system, display amazing diversity in size and distance from the star. Such studies help astronomers understand the formation of planets and shed light on our system’s early history. …read more
