| Many scientists think it's a protoplanet left over from the solar system's first few million years. |
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| The protoplanet candidate orbits about 70 times further from its star than Earth does from the Sun. |
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| There are indications that the surroundings of the protoplanet are potentially heated up by the formation process. |
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| The mechanism generally invoked to solve this problem is a giant collision with an earth-sized protoplanet at the end of the planet formation. |
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| It isn't clear how the latest suspected protoplanet is being formed. |
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| This gaseous matter condensed into small particles that coalesced to form a protoplanet, which in turn grew by the gravitational attraction of more particulates. |
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| In the case of protoplanet LkCa 15 b, hydrogen atoms were heated up to nearly 10,000 degrees Celsius. |
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| This asteroid is likely the survivor of a violent hit-and-run with another object that stripped off the outer, rocky layers of a protoplanet. |
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| Researchers think that Ceres is an intact protoplanet, a fossil from the beginning of the solar system. |
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| Dawn previously explored the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months, from 2011 to 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body. |
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| In March, NASA's Dawn probe will arrive at protoplanet Ceres, the most massive body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. |
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