News Release Archive: American Astronomical Society Meeting

News Release 11 of 99

January 7, 2007 12:00 PM (EST)

News Release Number: STScI-2007-02

Hubble Observations Provide Insight into Planet Birth

An American Astronomical Society Meeting Release

Hubble observed a "blizzard" of particles in a disk around a young star revealing the process by which planets grow from tiny dust grains. The particles are as fluffy as snowflakes and are roughly ten times larger than typical interstellar dust grains. They were detected in a disk encircling the 12-million-year-old star AU Microscopii. The star is 32 light-years away in the southern constellation of Microscopium, the Microscope.

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Credit: NASA, ESA, J. R. Graham and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley), and B. Matthews (Hertzberg Institute of Astrophysics)