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January 09, 2014

Research: Smaller exoplanets found to be covered in gas
Evanston, Ill. (UPI) Jan 8, 2013
U.S. researchers say they were surprised to find a number of exoplanets in the Milky Way that are only a few times bigger than Earth but covered in gas. "This indicates these planets formed very quickly after the birth of their star, while there was still a gaseous disk around the star," Yoram Lithwick, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, said in a release Wednesday. "By contrast, Earth is thought to have formed much later, af ... read more

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