microrobert
06-21-2012, 08:07 PM
Exoplanet 'Odd Couple' Defy Formation Theories
Discovery raises fresh questions about how planetary systems and their parent stars evolve.
The two planets circling Kepler-36, a sun-like star in its senior years, are as different as Earth and Neptune. But unlike the hundreds of millions of miles that separate our solar system's rocky worlds from its gas giants, Kepler-36's brood come as close as 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers, or 0.01 AU) from one another -- about five times the distance between Earth and the moon.
"When they're at their closest, it presents a spectacular view in the sky," astronomer Josh Carter, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Discovery News.
Exoplanet 'Odd Couple' Defy Formation Theories : Discovery News (http://news.discovery.com/space/exoplanet-odd-couple-kepler-36-120621.html)
Discovery raises fresh questions about how planetary systems and their parent stars evolve.
The two planets circling Kepler-36, a sun-like star in its senior years, are as different as Earth and Neptune. But unlike the hundreds of millions of miles that separate our solar system's rocky worlds from its gas giants, Kepler-36's brood come as close as 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers, or 0.01 AU) from one another -- about five times the distance between Earth and the moon.
"When they're at their closest, it presents a spectacular view in the sky," astronomer Josh Carter, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Discovery News.
Exoplanet 'Odd Couple' Defy Formation Theories : Discovery News (http://news.discovery.com/space/exoplanet-odd-couple-kepler-36-120621.html)