Thursday, October 10, 2013

Lonely planet found wandering a mere 80 light years from Earth

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/10/lonely-planet-pso-80-light-years-from-earth

October 10, 2013 - The Guardian
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The lonely planet's heat signature, located to the Capricornus constellation and belonging to a collection of young stars called the Beta Pictoris moving group, was spotted over the course of two years of observations by scientists using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Confirmation of the lonely planet was made with measurements made by the Gemini observatory in July. The planet's details and description will be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters and have already been placed online at the arXiv website.
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