Planets in the pleiades ...

[oxmixmudd]

Since I was out with the scope last night and one of my targets was a wide field view of the pleiades star cluster, this was kind of cool to wake up to. It turns out there is evidence of planetary formation around a few of those stars. In this article on universe today, astronomers are seeing evidence of collisions on the scale of that which is thought to have formed our moon. The time scale is right. And the star is about the size of our sun.

pleiades.jpg

The pleiades themselves make for a spectacular sight in an 8" or larger short focal length scope, as the blue nebulosity visible in photos begins to become apparent to the eye as well. In addition, instead of just the 7 stars one can see with (well corrected) naked eye vision, there are a few hundred more all in the same field of view. The above is similar to a naked eye view through such a scope.


Jim

[rogue06]

It seems that it is now getting to the point that not a week goes by without a report about some more extra-solar planes being discovered.

[rogue06]

And planeTs as well!