From: baalke@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov   
      
   EMBARGOED UNTIL: 2 pm (EDT), July 10, 2003   
      
   Don Savage   
   NASA Headquarters, Washington   
   (Phone: 202/358-1547; E-mail: dsavage@hq.nasa.gov)   
      
   Nancy Neal   
   Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD   
   (Phone: 301/286-0039; E-mail: nancy.g.neal@nasa.gov)   
      
   Ray Villard   
   Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD   
   (Phone: 410/338-4514; E-mail: villard@stsci.edu)   
      
   Barbara Kennedy   
   Penn State University, University Park, PA   
   (Phone: 814/863-4682; E-mail: science@psu.edu)   
      
   Michelle Cook   
   University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada   
   (Phone: 604/822-2048; E-mail: michelle.cook@ubc.ca)   
      
   Tim Stephens   
   University of California, Santa Cruz, CA   
   (Phone: 831-459-2495; E-mail: stephens@ucsc.edu)   
      
   Stuart Walpert   
   University of California, Los Angeles, CA   
   (Phone: 310-825-2585; E-mail: stuartw@college.ucla.edu)   
      
   PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR03-19   
      
   HUBBLE HELPS CONFIRM OLDEST KNOWN PLANET   
      
   NASA's Hubble Space Telescope precisely measured the mass of the oldest   
   known planet in our Milky Way galaxy. At an estimated age of 13 billion   
   years, the planet is more than twice as old as Earth's 4.5 billion   
   years. It's about as old as a planet can be. It formed around a young,   
   sun-like star barely 1 billion years after our universe's birth in the   
   Big Bang. The ancient planet has had a remarkable history because it   
   resides in an unlikely, rough neighborhood. It orbits a peculiar pair of   
   burned-out stars in the crowded core of a cluster of more than 100,000   
   stars. The new Hubble findings close a decade of speculation and debate   
   about the identity of this ancient world. Until Hubble's measurement,   
   astronomers had debated the identity of this object. Was it a planet or   
   a brown dwarf? Hubble's analysis shows that the object is 2.5 times the   
   mass of Jupiter, confirming that it is a planet. Its very existence   
   provides tantalizing evidence that the first planets formed rapidly,   
   within a billion years of the Big Bang, leading astronomers to conclude   
   that planets may be very abundant in our galaxy.   
      
   To see and read more about the oldest known planet, click on:   
   http://hubblesite.org/news/2003/19   
      
   -end-   
      
   The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the   
   Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for   
   NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,   
   MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation   
   between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)