вторник, 3 февраля 2009 г.

The youngest planet

Was discovered the youngest planet, which exceeds the size of Jupiter in a few times, but her age is less than the Earth hundreds of times. It is orbiting a star in the constellation TW hydro, whose age is about 8-10 million years old. 
Perhaps the opening of a new celestial body will change the perceptions of how the formation of planets. According to one popular theory, they are formed from the center to the surface: the particles of space dust are attracted to each other and form a growing increase in the size of celestial body. 
The new planet, a different way: rapid accumulation of dust squeezed under the influence of gravity and formed a dense, but the fragile structure. Scientists using computer models of the planet came to the conclusion that a similar process of formation of celestial bodies can exist in nature. 
According to the researchers, the cause of instability congestion could become a young star Tau XZ, which took place not far from the accumulation of about 1600 years ago. The star could hurt congestion, causing his instability and triggered formation of the globe. Planet gave the name of TW Hydra «b», and brought to the class of giants. TW Hydra «b» heavier than Jupiter is about 10 times and is located at a distance of 6 million km from its star. One revolution around the star makes the planet for 3.5 days. Remarkably, until now astronomers could not detect the planet, formed less than 100 million years ago. By the way, the age of the Earth is now estimated at 4.5 billion years old.