"Phoenix systems": planets forming around post-nova stars…

by Diane Duane

Wowie!


NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered new evidence that planets might rise from a dead star’s ashes.The infrared telescope surveyed the scene around a pulsar, the remnant of an exploded star, and found a surrounding disk made up of debris shot out during the star’s death throes. The dusty rubble in this disk might ultimately stick together to form planets.

This is the first time scientists have detected planet-building materials around a star that died in a fiery blast.

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