# Planet that exists is too young to exist



## Brian G Turner (May 30, 2004)

An infant planet just a million years old is puzzling astrophysicists - it is simply too young to exist, according to the standard model of planet formation.

    Evidence for this precocious planet comes in the form of infrared radiation from the Taurus Molecular Cloud, about 400 light years away, detected by NASA's Spitzer space telescope.

    Spitzer, launched in August 2003, is sensitive enough to pick up radiation from the discs of gas and dust around sun-like proto-stars in the cloud. The discs are revealed by their distinctive broad spectrum, punctuated by small dips where ice-covered dust absorbs some of the light.

    But one star, called CoKu Tau 4, is different. A whole chunk of the spectrum is missing, with hardly any radiation with a wavelength less than about 10 micrometres. According to lead investigator Dan Watson, of the University of Rochester, New York, that hole in the spectrum means a hole in the disc. 

    The innermost parts of the disc, where the gas would be hotter and therefore emitting shorter wavelengths, is missing. While there are a few possible explanations for the hole in the disc, Watson thinks that a giant planet has formed around CoKu Tau 4.


 More: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995052


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