A circumstellar disk of debris around a matured stellar system may indicate that Earth-like planets lie within - since such a disk results from the collisional grinding of rocky planetesimals. Credit: NASA.
Recent modeling of solar mass stars with planetary systems, found that a system with four rocky planets and four gas giants in stable orbits – and only a sparsely populated outer belt of planetesimals – has only a 15 to 25% likelihood of developing. While you might be skeptical about the validity of a model that puts our best known planetary system in the unlikely basket, there may be some truth in this finding.(...)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Our Unlikely Solar System (697 words)
© Steve Nerlich for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Full story at http://www.universetoday.com/84590/astronomy-without-a-telescope-our-unlikely-solar-system/
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