Where planets can form, they do
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US astronomers show that wherever there is room for a planet to form around a young star, it does.
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For the first time, scientists have found rings of dust around planet-bearing stars an important confirmation of theories about how planets form, NASA has announced.
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Signs of ancient eruptions indicate a planet geologically active and may suggest presence of simple life forms.
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With the help of a modified backyard telescope, astronomers have discovered a giant planet orbiting another star. It is the first extrasolar world found with such modest equipment.
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Two new discoveries suggest that sunlike solar systems like ours â with life-hosting planets â are more common than previously thought.
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NASA's infrared eyes are probing the beginnings of both stars and planets.  In two separate observations, the Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered the warm glow from a possible stellar infant and an icy disk where planets may one-day form.
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Large colonies of micro-organisms living under rocks have been discovered in the most hostile and extreme regions of the Arctic and Antarctic - giving new insights on survival of life on other planets.
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European scientists have found a planet circling a distant star that could be home to life. The planet, the first detected so far that is enough like Earth for life to develop, orbits a star called mu Arae in the southern constellation Altar.
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Planet-building is dusty work, and now two space telescopes have captured images of cosmic construction materials: disks of dust circling stars about the same size as our sun.
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Two old stars appear to be gearing up for a second generation of planet formation, a phenomenon astronomers say they have never seen before.
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Most of the extrasolar planets discovered to date are gas giants like Jupiter, but their orbits are either much closer to their parent stars or are highly eccentric. Planet hunters are on the verge of confirming the discovery of Jupiter-size planets with Jupiter-like orbits. Solar systems that contain these "good" Jupiters may harbor habitable Earth-like planets as well.
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LOS ANGELES - It may take much longer than scientists have thought for violent turbulence to turn grains of space dust into new planets.    A NASA telescope recently discovered evidence that the most violent part of the process in forming an Earth-sized planet - the collisions between colossal chunks of rock - may last hundreds of millions of years instead of 10 million years, scientists said Monday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif...
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For the first time, scientists have found rings of dust around planet-bearing stars - an important confirmation of theories about how planets form, NASA announced Thursday.
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A team of astronomers announced last week the discovery of some of the smallest planets yet detected beyond our solar system. The two newly discovered planets represent a new class of extrasolar planets, and
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Planets form more violently than once thought, and many solar systems are strewn with dust from collisions like a blast that may have created Earth&#39;s moon, according to new findings.
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These are heady times for planet hunters. During the past decade, astronomers have uncovered at least 125 confirmed planets in 98 solar systems in our corner of the Milky Way.
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Space scientists offer thoughts, both practical and far-fetched, for what to do if thereâs a space rock out there with our planetâs number on it.