By using the full power of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer an international team of astronomers has discovered exozodiacal light close to the habitable zones around nine nearby stars. This light is starlight reflected from dust created as the result of collisions between asteroids, and the evaporation of comets. The presence of such large amounts of dust in the inner regions around some stars may pose an obstacle to the direct imaging of Earth-like planets in the future.
The release, images and videos are available on:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1435/
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Kind regards,
The ESO Education and Public Outreach Department
3 November 2014
