Youngest Planet Known To Man?

    From the NY Times The New Youngest Planet, and It´s Just a Million Years Old By WARREN E. LEARY Published: May 28, 2004 WASHINGTON, May 27 - The newest NASA space telescope, with its ability to see past obscuring clouds of cosmic dust, has spotted what astronomers believe is evidence of the youngest planet observed so far, a gaseous body that could be less than a million years old. Announcing the first major findings of the Spitzer Space Telescope on Thursday, scientists said the observations could indicate that planet formation around stars is more common and more rapid than previously suspected. The telescope, launched in August into a singular orbit around the Sun that keeps it trailing the Earth by 5.4 million miles, uses supercold instruments to detect the faint infrared warmth of distant objects. That method lets it study objects too cold or distant to be otherwise seen through dust and gas clouds. "By seeing what´s behind the dust, Spitzer has shown us star and planet formation is a very active process in our galaxy," said Dr. Edward N. Churchwell of the University of Wisconsin, a principal investigator who is using the observatory. Speaking at a NASA news briefing in Washington, Dr. Churchwell said the early findings "knocked our socks off." "Spitzer is likely to change our perception of star formation in our galaxy," he added. The infrared observatory looked at a dusty star nursery region called RCW 49 and uncovered 300 newborn stars in one image. A close look at two stars showed that they had faint planet-forming discs of dust and gas around them. Dr. Churchwell said preliminary information suggested that all 300 might harbor such discs. RCW 49 is 13,700 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus. Spitzer also surveyed young stars in the constellation Taurus, 420 light-years from Earth, and returned surprising findings about infant stars less than a million years old and slightly older toddlers. Looking at the star CoKu Tau 4, which is one million years old, Spitzer found a highly defined clear area in the dust from which it formed. Dr. Dan M. Watson of the University of Rochester said the clear area was probably swept away by a young gaseous planet that was forming around the star that cleaned up the debris. Although other events were possible like heat and light from the star blowing away the dust or asteroids forming in the area, scientists said the clean inner edge of the void suggested a planet. "The hole is real, the hole is really clear, really sharp," Dr. Watson said at the briefing. A third finding was made in surveying five very young stars in Taurus. Dr. Watson and a colleague at Rochester, Dr. William J. Forrest, found significant quantities of icy organic materials in the planet-forming discs that circled infant stars. Those stars, a few hundreds of thousands of years old, were swimming in dust particles coated in ice made of water, methanol and carbon dioxide. The presence of the organic materials throughout the discs could explain the origin of icy bodies like comets, which some scientists believe could have supplied Earth, and other planets, with some water and organic materials that could have enabled life to form.

    Youngest Planets known to Science perhaps... known to Man? Incorrect.

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    Quite simple. The one that just formed where the "big bang" happened, Time is uncorrupted there so it works differently.

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    Ookay, that´s nice, although SOME people may be callous enough to point that since we know nothing of the age, location, appearance, or know precisely what the universe is like there, that doesn´t actually count as being known to man, because it er... isn´t. <img src=´http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gaz/ukflag.gif ´> Well, this is my new sig. Small. Doesn´t do any tricks either. No bouncing up or down or spinning... Bah. Youths these days, with all their bright lights and shiny wossnames...mumble....mumble.

    You know Helty, you gotta help fill in the gaps a little bit better. I assume you are making reference to multiverse string theory in which a universe could be in the making at any moment and, if the currently hypothesized estimates of the progression line of the Big Bang is taken into account, a planet conceivably could be formed in a matter of a few moments.... but I think, in fact, the theory is that what could be formed in the earliest nanoseconds of an universe would be amorphous superheated gases and such.

    Indeed it did for this planet has no *Name* yet until it is released from the Uncorrupted Time streams.

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    I burnt wolfies book to keep warm

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    Try it! *Holds up a flamethrower*

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    This is rich coming from you

    -~-~-~-~ You have called down the Thunder. Now reap the Whirlwind. Warning! In the intrest of safety it is advisable to keep Heltak away from Fire and Flames! He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils be

    honestly noone knows what the newest planet is cause noone can see too far into the expancive universe and hell do we really know how old it is anyway or is it just here say? to be honest it is alll specualtion cause noone was around during the time when it all came to being <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> ok i am just full of crap <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> just an opinon though <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> &quot;To live is to die....but living is to die slowly..why waste time on trivial things just play as hard as you can&quot;

    "To live is to die....but living is to die slowly..why waste time on trivial things just play as hard as you can"

    that telescope looks like a gian picture camera Heltak , oh really? i have done some things that would have been embarassing...if i ever feel embarassed

    [img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/master_wolf/TechSig03.png]

    astronomers would generaly agree on the theory put forward by indy.. after the big bang, rahter similar to after a nuke blowing up, you don´t get relatively ´cool´ objects very quickly. but on an astronomical scale-literally, when the big bang first formed particles would be superheated to megazillion´s of degrees. and stay that way for quite some time, say couple billion years at the least. since all existence is just being formed, there is no ´surrounding´ which is cooler than any given particle to absorb the heat energy from. therefore, all this energy would be used in the creation of other matter, kinetic energy to expand space (if thats how space was formed) and other sorts. this process woullda taken more than few moments. and after that, when particles have cooled to only about a million degrees.. we´d see gas clouds everywhere these cannot form planets cause they are light elements like hydrogen; gradually (billions of years) they clump together to form the first giant stars. no planets here. the first stars don´t live long. say about 2 billion years. then they burn out, re-dispersing material. but as the stars burn through a process of fission(or was is fusion? damn <img src=smilies/icon_smile_dead.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>) they create heavier elements like carbon and gradually, iron and stuff. as these heavier elements are dispersed, more than a few moments are needed for them to re-group and start spinning under gravity and clump together. and only by chance, when enough of these heavy elements clump together under sufficient gravity, without having some other stellar body wham into them, they form rocks. yes, rocks.. then rocks would clump together, and form planets. some bigger ones may acquire enough gravity to hold lighter gases like hydrogen and helium, as is the case of saturn and jupiter in our very own solar system. so there ya go heltak, even if we travel by the string theory, we´d only see superheated gases, and possibly have our space-time-travel device burn to a crisp.

    i reckon that the &quot;artist´s impression&quot; is a screenshot from FL.... it looks like one of the unknown systems, just not in that pink that there is in the unknown system. lol - a million years is young? kinda puts human life into perspective.... and the pointless bickering that some people take part in/initiate.