An artist’s rendition shows a planet orbiting a very young, active star pocked with dark star spots and speckled with flares and other surface activity. A team led by a University of Florida astronomer announced Jan. 11, 2006, the discovery of the planet orbiting a star just 600 million years old, one of the youngest stars ever found with a planetary companion. In a development expected to dramatically speed the hunt for planets in coming years, the astronomers used a new, more effective planet-finding instrument attached to a telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, Ariz., to find the planet, located about 100 light years away in the constellation Virgo.

(Image courtesy of P. Marenfeld and NOAO/AURA/NSF)
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