Baby Worlds

Birth announcements are in order. Last week NASA released snapshots of what astronomers believe are stars in the process of giving birth to new planets 450 light-years from Earth. This picture, taken edge on, shows a dark dust band circling a bright young star in the constellation Taurus, a dust band that may be swirling down under its own gravitational force to create infant worlds not unlike our own planet. The gestation period? Millions and millions of years.