Jun 12 1984
From The Space Library
NASA scientist Dr. Hartmut H. Aumann said that the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society that satellite observation in space had produced evidence of rings around nearby stars that might be the birth sites of new planets. Aumann, of JPL, said that indications of orbiting material around more than 40 stars within 75 light years of Earth came from observations made by the IRAS launched in 1983. Scientists had said that the existence of other planetary systems would increase chances that life similar to that on Earth had evolved elsewhere in the universe. Only in our solar system had scientists confirmed the existence of planets.
Scientist discovered the material circling the stars by measuring infrared light energy. The stars produced more of it than could be accounted for by their number. Scientists would try to obtain a telescope image of the rings around the closer stars for further verification of the theory, Aumann said. If existence of the orbiting material was confirmed, it would take about 500 million years for the material to develop into planets.
In a background report, NASA said that the discovery suggested that stars orbited by solid materials might be almost commonplace in the Milky Way galaxy. (USA Today, June 13/84, 4D; W Post, June 13/84, A-15)
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