BETA PICTORIS: PLANETS? LIFE? OR WHAT?

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time, even before there was the term cocoon nebula, planetary
scientists knew that a cocoon nebula had surrounded the sun, long ago, in order
for our solar system to form and take on their currents motions (1).
In 1755, a German, named Immanuel Kant, reasoned that �gravity would
make circumsolar cloud contract and that rotation would flatten it (1)." Thus,
the cloud would assume the general shape of a rotating disk, explaining the fact
that the planets, in our solar system, revolve in a disk-shaped distribution.
This idea, about the disk-shaped nebula that was formed around the early
sun, came to be known as the nebula hypothesis (1). Then, in 1796, a French
mathematician named Laplace, proposed that the rotating disk continued to cool
and contract, forming planetary bodies (1). Also, when investigating the
evolution of stars, it was proposed �that a star forms as a central condensation
in an extended nebula... The outer part remains behind as the cocoon nebula ...

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The orbits of most of the
particles are inclined 5 degrees or less to the plane of the system (2). These
minimal orbital inclinations are typical of the major planets in our own solar
system. There is evidence that the circumstellar material around Beta Pictoris
takes the form of a highly flattened disk, rather than a spherical shell implies
an almost certain association with planet formation (2). The disk material
itself is believed to be a potential source for planet accretion (2). This
retention of nearly coplanar orbits in the Beta Pictoris disk is a qualitative
argument in support of its being a relatively young system (2). Some
astronomers believe that we are witnessing ...

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