The Sky Tonight

January 09, 2013

Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 09, 2013
Comets trailing wispy tails across the night sky are a beautiful byproduct of our solar system's formation, icy leftovers from 4.6 billion years ago when the planets coalesced from rocky rubble. The discovery by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Clarion University in Pennsylvania of six likely comets around distant stars suggests that comets - dubbed "exocomets" - are just as common in other stellar systems with planets. Though only one of the 10 stars now thought to ... read more

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