Planets Found in a Cluster of Buzzing Stars

Artist’s illustration of a planet within a cluster. Image credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThere’s a classic science fiction story called Nightfall, written by the late-great Isaac Asimov. It’s the tale of a world with six suns that fill the sky with such brightness that the inhabitants have no concept of night. And then one day, a once-in-a-thousand-years alignment causes all the stars to set at once; and everyone goes crazy!In another case of science following science fiction, NASA-funded astronomers have discovered planets orbiting within a dense cluster of stars called the Beehive Cluster; a collection of 1,000 stars collected around a common center of gravity – Nightfall worlds?! (...)Read the rest of Planets Found in a Cluster of Buzzing Stars (487 words)© Fraser for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Extrasolar Planets Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh