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  • Space telescope discovery raises prospect of mini solar systems

    02/07/2005 8:54:22 PM PST · by NormsRevenge · 16 replies · 685+ views
    Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/7/05 | John Antczak - AP
    LOS ANGELES (AP) - NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a dusty disc of material around a very small "failed star" called a brown dwarf, raising the possibility that there may be miniature solar systems in which planets orbit objects not much larger than planets, scientists said Monday. The brown dwarf named OTS 44 is only about 15 times the mass of Jupiter, much smaller than any other brown dwarf known to be surrounded by a disc of planet-building material, said Kevin Luhman, lead author of a study by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "The neat thing...