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Study Concludes "Planet" Was Just Stellar Spots

Posted by timothy on from the waste-of-missiles dept.

Kligat writes "Back in January, it was reported that the youngest planet ever to be discovered, about ten times the mass of Jupiter, was orbiting the eight- to ten-million-year-old star TW Hydrae. Now a Spanish research team has concluded that TW Hydrae b doesn't exist, and that cold spots on the star's surface actually produced the dip in brightness instead of a transiting planet. Not as cool as if a planet had actually been there, but refutations are science, too, right?"

2 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Makes me wonder... by boxless · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    How many other 'facts' about things in the universe might merely be tainted observations?

    So many times I read the most fantastical things astronmers have discovered a billion light-years away, and I think, how do they really know that? When there's that much distance, couldn't there be something out there fooling with their observation?

    Seems like it does happen.

    and I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.

  2. Re:"but refutations are science, too, right?" by eln · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I had no idea those damn Democrats were so interested in propping up false extra-solar planets.