January 7th, 2010 - Astronomy
Using the Gemini South telescope in Chile, astronomers at UCLA have found dusty evidence for the formation of young, rocky planets around a star some 500 light-years distant. But these potential extrasolar worlds are alien in an even more intriguing way: In the aftermath of collisions between planetary embryos around this star, the researchers discovered that the dusty debris bears no resemblance to the planetary building blocks of our own solar system.
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