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Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the building-heavenly-bodies dept.

Astroturtle writes "The Hubble Space Telescope's new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has captured a detailed image of spiral rings in a distant protoplanetary disk -- the pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star in which planets are expected to condense. But contrary to earlier suggestions, the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form."

5 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Proprietary Discs? by yerricde · · Score: 4, Funny

    After reading the headline, my first thought was of a copyright infringement sting operation. But then I realized it said "Protoplanetary" and not "Proprietary".

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    Will I retire or break 10K?
  2. Re:Makes one wonder by digital+bath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hopefully. It would be a shame to have written all those sci-fi books and have them all turn out wrong...

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    find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
  3. CENSORED! by kinnell · · Score: 4, Funny
    The black areas are omitted because of poor data

    Yeah right! What they mean is that there was something phallic looking in the picture. Or maybe this is part of the movement to stop the publication of scientific findings which might be useful to terrorists. Either that, or they didn't want us to know about the alien civilisation they're waging a secret war against. Is nothing sacred?

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    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
  4. embedded planets by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Funny
    the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form.

    If there were embedded planets there, they wouldn't be allowed to tell where they are, or face expulsion.

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    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  5. Re:OT gripe about idiotic web sites by TotallyUseless · · Score: 3, Funny

    When sending a grip to people, I find it most effective to use the Kung Fu grip! That usually gets their attention

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    Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!