Distant planets

Dust rings around a atar (Credit: NASA) the first telescope images of the dust rings around distant stars reveal startling new evidence of planets formed beyond the Solar System. This was stated by astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, usa.

Pictures of two distant stars from the Hubble Space Telescope show dust rings that may have been gravitationally sculpted by planets, said the astronomers. The stars identified as hr 476 a and hr 141569, are both 300 light years away from the Earth. The rings around hr 141569 have a dark gap that may have been cut by the gravitational influence of the planet, said Alycia Weinberger of the University of California and a member of the astronomy team that made the discovery. "The most obvious way to form a gap is with a planet," said Weinberger. She added that the dust ring is under gravitational influence of some other body. This means that there is circumstantial evidence of a planet around this star, said Weinberger.