In the past couple of years astronomers have found indirect but convincing evidence of planets around distant stars--the gravitational pull of these invisible planets makes their parent stars wobble. Now researchers at Caltech have found what appears to be a solar system in the making about 450 light-years away in the constellation Auriga.
While surveying young, large stars in nearby parts of our galaxy with an array of radio telescopes, Caltech astronomer Vincent Mannings detected a smear of cool gas and dust around a hot, young star known only as mwc 480. It could be a construction site for asteroids, he says, and maybe for planetary cores as well.
The disk, which weighs about as much as 40 Jupiters and is about ten times as wide as our solar system, is not the first to be discovered. Astronomers know of at least six others. But the new disk in Auriga ...
