![]() ![]() Planets can also cause such dips when they “transit” across their stars as seen from Earth. It and the other stars under consideration were too far away for their spots to be seen directly, so Mamajek and Pecaut instead examined J1407's “light curve”-a plot of its brightness over time-looking for small dips when spots spun into view and reduced the starlight. One candidate for inclusion in the survey had no name, just a code based on the instruments that observed it and its position in the sky, in the constellation of Centaurus: 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6. Younger stars spin faster than older ones, and their spins can be clocked by watching for star spots (darker, cooler regions on a star's surface) coming in and out of view. To guess the ages of their candidates, Mamajek and Pecaut checked the stars' rotation rates. The story begins in 2011, when Mamajek and his then graduate student Mark Pecaut at Rochester were assembling a catalog of very young stars near to Earth. Along the way, we found not only a ring system larger than Saturn's but also what seems to be a newborn moon. It was there that my colleague Eric Mamajek of the University of Rochester showed me something that sent us on a quest to find the first ringed planet beyond our solar system, a quest involving both the world's most modern telescopes and century-old astronomical observations. (called 1702, after its street address), nestles close to Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. ![]() It is not by coincidence that one of the best bars in Tucson, Ariz. But if you want to find the most exciting theories, you need to go where guards are lowered and wilder ideas can roam free. Much astronomy takes place in the offices and observatories where scientists work. ![]()
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