Stardust evidence points to planet collision
Writing in the Astrophysical Journal, the team at UCLA, Tennessee State University and the California Institute of Technology said it spotted the dust orbiting a star known as BD +20 307, 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Aries.
Your story, the title of which is the subject of this e-mail, says that the stardust around a double star system is 300 million light years away. I’m afraid that distance is outside of our galaxy and 100 million light years beyond the next galaxy. Planets have only been detected within our Milky Way galaxy which is only 100 thousand light years across.
Donald M.
Several readers pointed this out to us. We corrected: GBU Editor
This artist’s rendering, released September 19, 2008, shows a planetary collision in the constellation Aries. Masses of dust floating around a distant binary star system suggest that two Earth-like planets obliterated each other in a violent collision, U.S. researchers reported Friday.
REUTERS/Lynette R. Cook/ UCLA/Handout