Planets
In September, 2012 two planets which orbit separate stars were discovered in the Beehive Cluster. The finding was significant for being the first planets detected orbiting stars like Earth's Sun that were situated in stellar clusters. Planets had previously been detected in such clusters, but not orbiting stars like the Sun.
The planets have been designated Pr0201b and Pr0211b. The 'b' at the end of their names indicates that the bodies are planets. The discoveries are what have been termed Hot Jupiters, massive gas giants that, unlike the planet Jupiter, orbit very close to their parent stars.
The announcement describing the planetary finds, written by Sam Quinn as the lead author, was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Quinn's team worked with David Latham of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, utilizing the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory.
Read more about this topic: Beehive Cluster
Famous quotes containing the word planets:
“Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky?
Was there a father?
Or have the planets cut holes in their nets
and let our childhood out,
or are we the dolls themselves,
born but never fed?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Marriage is the clue to human life, but there is no marriage apart from the wheeling sun and the nodding earth, from the straying of the planets and the magnificence of the fixed stars.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wave-length of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)