National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

A Lightweight Disk Around a Lightweight Star May Harbor Earth-like Planet

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A Lightweight Disk Around a Lightweight Star May Harbor Earth-like Planet

A team of Japanese astronomers resolved a circumstellar disk around the young lightweight star FN Tau. The diminutive star is located in a star-forming region toward the Constellation Taurus at a distance 460 light years from Earth. This research group used the Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics (CIAO) at the Subaru Telescope to directly image FN Tau and the lightweight disk of planet-forming material surrounding it. This star is merely 100 thousand years old and weighs only one tenth of the Sun.

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More info: Subaru telescope web page