Fact Sheet
Planetary Nursery
Giant planets may have taken shape around some of the stars in NGC 2362, a star cluster depicted in this infrared image from Spitzer Space Telescope. Recent observations show that the stars in the cluster, which are only a few million years old, contain very little gas, which is a key ingredient for building giant planets. NGC 2362 is near the tail of Canis Major, the big dog. [NASA/JPL/Caltech/T. Currie (CfA)]
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