September 30, 2008 (Tuesday)

• The Hubble Space Telescope
  Hubble Space Telescope
  The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
  
   repair mission
  STS-125
  STS-125, or HST-SM4 , was the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope .Launch occurred on 11 May 2009 at 2:01 pm EDT...
  
   is delayed as the data control unit fails, stopping all transmissions and forcing a significant change to the repair mission. (BBC)
• A new solar cell efficiency
  Solar cell efficiency
  The efficiency of a solar cell may be broken down into reflectance efficiency, thermodynamic efficiency, charge carrier separation efficiency and conductive efficiency...
  
   record of 40.8 percent is achieved measured under concentrated light of 326 suns
  Sun unit
  The sun unit is a measure of sun intensity weighted for skin damage related to the UV index.-Basics of solar radiation:Solar radiation sustains life on earth and determines climate...
  
  . (ScienceDaily)
• Particles 10 nanometers or less may pass right through skin
  Skin
  -Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...
  
   and accumulate in the lymphatic system
  Lymphatic system
  The lymphoid system is the part of the immune system comprising a network of conduits called lymphatic vessels that carry a clear fluid called lymph unidirectionally toward the heart. Lymphoid tissue is found in many organs, particularly the lymph nodes, and in the lymphoid follicles associated...
  
  . (Physorg)

September 29, 2008 (Monday)

• Two indicators of liquid water on Mars
  Mars
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
  
   are found by Phoenix
  Phoenix (spacecraft)
  Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008...
  
  , also for the first time snow
  Snow
  Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
  
   is detected in clouds. (AP)
• A possible major breakthrough in creating a commercially viable manufacturing process for carbon nanotube
  Carbon nanotube
  Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...
  
  s at seven meters per minute. (Physorg)

September 28, 2008 (Sunday)

• Shenzhou 7
  Shenzhou 7
  - Backup crew :Of the back-up crew, only Chen Quan had not previously flown in space.- Mission highlights :The Long March 2F rocket launched the Shenzhou 7 into an initial elliptical orbit of 200 x 330 kilometres inclined at 42.4 degrees on 25 September 2008. About seven hours later the spacecraft...
  
   crew members
  Astronaut
  An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
  
   return safely to Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
  . (Reuters)

September 27, 2008 (Saturday)

• Researchers in Los Angeles
  Los Ángeles
  Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
  
   develop and fast, inexpensive way of counting cells in a sample by using a digital camera and a simple algorithm
  Algorithm
  In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
  
   to distinguish the shadow
  Shadow
  A shadow is an area where direct light from a light source cannot reach due to obstruction by an object. It occupies all of the space behind an opaque object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, or reverse projection of the object blocking the...
  
  s different types of cells have. (TechReview)

September 25, 2008 (Thursday)

• China
  China
  Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
  
   launched the Shenzhou 7
  Shenzhou 7
  - Backup crew :Of the back-up crew, only Chen Quan had not previously flown in space.- Mission highlights :The Long March 2F rocket launched the Shenzhou 7 into an initial elliptical orbit of 200 x 330 kilometres inclined at 42.4 degrees on 25 September 2008. About seven hours later the spacecraft...
  
   space mission that will include the first space walk for China. (AP)
• Researchers have created pluripotent stem cell
  Stem cell
  This article is about the cell type. For the medical therapy, see Stem Cell TreatmentsStem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, that can divide and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells...
  
  s from adult skin cells with an adenovirus which avoids the cancerous pitfall of a retrovirus
  Retrovirus
  A retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter replicates as part of the host cell's DNA...
  
  . (TechReview)

September 24, 2008 (Wednesday)

• A dark flow
  Dark flow
  Dark flow is an astrophysical term describing a peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters. The actual measured velocity is the sum of the velocity predicted by Hubble's Law plus a small and unexplained velocity flowing in a common direction....
  
   has been observed with galaxy cluster
  Galaxy cluster
  A galaxy cluster is a compact cluster of galaxies. Basic difference between a galaxy group and a galaxy cluster is that there are many more galaxies in a cluster than in a group. Also, galaxies in a cluster are more compact and have higher velocity dispersion. One of the key features of cluster is...
  
  s unexpectedly drifting towards a structure beyond the observable universe
  Observable universe
  In Big Bang cosmology, the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion...
  
  . (ScienceDaily)

September 23, 2008 (Tuesday)

• The MacArthur foundation announces the twenty-five $500,000 winners of the 2008 Genius awards. (MacFound)
• Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
   shows its first Android handset
  HTC Dream
  The HTC Dream is an Internet-enabled smartphone with an operating system designed by Google and hardware designed by HTC...
  
  . (CNet)

September 22, 2008 (Monday)

• Gene therapy
  Gene therapy
  Gene therapy is the insertion, alteration, or removal of genes within an individual's cells and biological tissues to treat disease. It is a technique for correcting defective genes that are responsible for disease development...
  
   has restored the sight of two of three test patients with Leber's congenital amaurosis
  Leber's congenital amaurosis
  Leber's congenital amaurosis is a rare inherited eye disease that appears at birth or in the first few months of life, and affects around 1 in 80,000 of the population.It was first described by Theodor Leber in the 19th century...
  
  . (Wired)

September 20, 2008 (Saturday)

• As a result of a helium
  Helium
  Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
  
   leak the Large Hadron Collider
  Large Hadron Collider
  The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
  
   will be down for two months of repairs. (CNet)

September 19, 2008 (Friday)

• A quench
  Quench
  In materials science, quenching is the rapid cooling of a workpiece to obtain certain material properties. It prevents low-temperature processes, such as phase transformations, from occurring by only providing a narrow window of time in which the reaction is both thermodynamically favorable and...
  
   occurred when liquid helium leaked at the Large Hadron Collider
  Large Hadron Collider
  The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
  
  . This will further delay experiments until the damage is accessed and vacuum is restored. (BBC)
• The Space Shuttle Endeavour
  Space Shuttle Endeavour
  Space Shuttle Endeavour is one of the retired orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States. Endeavour was the fifth and final spaceworthy NASA space shuttle to be built, constructed as a replacement for Challenger...
  
   moves to the launch pad as a backup in case the Space Shuttle Atlantis
  Space Shuttle Atlantis
  The Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration , the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States...
  
   crew needs to be rescued from their higher risk Hubble Space Telescope
  Hubble Space Telescope
  The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
  
   repair mission
  STS-125
  STS-125, or HST-SM4 , was the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope .Launch occurred on 11 May 2009 at 2:01 pm EDT...
  
  . (AP)
• Professor Stephen Hawking
  Stephen Hawking
  Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
  
   unveils the Corpus Clock
  Corpus Clock
  The Corpus Clock is a large sculptural clock at street level on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, at the junction of Bene't Street and Trumpington Street, looking out over King's Parade. It was conceived and funded by John C...
  
  , a 'terrifying' new way to read the time, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
  Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
  Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
  
  , England. (BBC News)
• The first lab grown heart
  Heart
  The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
  
   starts to beat. (PopSci)

September 18, 2008 (Thursday)

• The Large Hadron Collider
  Large Hadron Collider
  The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
  
   is down because of a faulty electrical transformer
  Transformer
  A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...
  
  . (CNet)

September 17, 2008 (Wednesday)

• A new estimate concludes 44 metric gigatons (billion tons) of greenhouse gas
  Greenhouse gas
  A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
  
  es could be offset if 100 of the largest cities replaced dark roof
  Roof
  A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
  
  s with white shingles and asphalt
  Asphalt
  Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...
  
   roads with concrete
  Concrete
  Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
  
  . (Physorg)

September 15, 2008 (Monday)

• Scientists find a rare direct image of a likely extrasolar planet
  Extrasolar planet
  An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
  
   500 light years away that is eight times the size of Jupiter
  Jupiter
  Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
  
   and orbits a younger star
  Star
  A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
  
   similar to the Sun
  Sun
  The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
  
  . (CBC)
• Mathematical biologist
  Biologist
  A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
  
  s at Harvard University
  Harvard University
  Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
  
   show that a form of natural selection
  Natural selection
  Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
  
   likely played a role in a prebiotic environment, whereby self assembly reactions that were short and fast would be favored over longer chains as they would use material faster and at the expense of slower reactions. (NewScientist)

September 12, 2008 (Friday)

• A low budget Discovery Channel
  Discovery Channel
  Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
  
   demonstration of wireless power transmission
  Wireless energy transfer
  Wireless energy transfer or wireless power is the transmission of electrical energy from a power source to an electrical load without artificial interconnecting conductors. Wireless transmission is useful in cases where interconnecting wires are inconvenient, hazardous, or impossible...
  
   between two Hawaiian islands 148 kilometres (92 mi) apart will be shown on Project Earth. It is a key technology to enable space solar power
  Space solar power
  Space-based solar power is the concept of collecting solar power in space for use on Earth. It has been in research since the early 1970s....
  
  . (Wired) (NSS)
• A state anti-spam
  E-mail spam
  Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
  
   law is overturned in the Virginia Supreme Court as it infringes upon the First Amendment
  First Amendment to the United States Constitution
  The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
  
   right to anonymous
  Anonymity
  Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
  
   speech. (CNet)

September 11, 2008 (Thursday)

• Research in the New England Journal of Medicine
  New England Journal of Medicine
  The New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...
  
   shows a small deletion in a specific section of DNA
  DNA
  Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
  
   can trigger a large number of cognitive problems. (TechReview)
• 3M
  3M
  3M Company , formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, United States....
  
   unveils the first handheld projector
  Handheld projector
  A Handheld projector is an emerging technology that applies the use of an image projector in a handheld device...
  
   the MPro110. (Popsci)

September 10, 2008 (Wednesday)

• The Large Hadron Collider
  Large Hadron Collider
  The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
  
   went online circulating beams of proton
  Proton
  The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....
  
  s around the 17 miles (27.4 km) track. (Reuters)
• A gamma ray burst
  Gamma ray burst
  Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical...
  
   originating from 7.5 billion light-year
  Light-year
  A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...
  
  s away in the constellation Boötes
  Boötes
  Boötes is a constellation in the northern sky, located between 0° and +60° declination, and 13 and 16 hours of right ascension on the celestial sphere. The name comes from the Greek Βοώτης, Boōtēs, meaning herdsman or plowman...
  
   on March 19th became the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye
  Naked eye
  The naked eye is a figure of speech referring to human visual perception unaided by a magnifying or light-collecting optical device, such as a telescope or microscope. Vision corrected to normal acuity using corrective lenses is considered "naked"...
  
  . (Reuters)

September 9, 2008 (Tuesday)

• Researchers in France
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
  
   discover a virophage called Sputnik that infects another virus. (Ars Technica)

September 5, 2008 (Friday)

• Legal challenges are launched against Cern
  CERN
  The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
  
  's Large Hadron Collider
  Large Hadron Collider
  The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
  
  , as there are ongoing concerns it could destroy Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
   by creating a stable black hole
  Black hole
  A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
  
  . (Telegraph)
• Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
   recalls 438,000 Vaio
  VAIO
  VAIO is a sub-brand used for many of Sony's computer products. Originally an acronym of Video Audio Integrated Operation, this was amended to Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer in 2008 to celebrate the brand's 10th anniversary...
  
   laptop
  Laptop
  A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...
  
  s because of an overheating issue that may injure users.(CNet)

September 3, 2008 (Wednesday)

• A survey on DVR
  Digital video recorder
  A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
  
  's shows they help the majority of relationships by permitting flexible time management and resolving television
  Television
  Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
  
   conflicts. (CNet)

September 2, 2008 (Tuesday)

• Canadian ice shelves
  Ice shelf
  An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland and Canada. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the grounded ice that feeds it is called...
  
   have lost almost one-quarter of their area this summer, indicating significant and irreversible changes with the present climate. (CBC)
• China
  China
  Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
  
   has developed a new generation of scalable processor code named Godson-3 that will simulate x86 architecture
  X86 architecture
  The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...
  
   and be 80 percent as fast as an Intel equivalent. (TechReview)
• Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
   launches the beta of its browser Chrome
  Google Chrome
  Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
  
   that is anticipated to make a significant impact on what users can do through the internet. (Reuters)
• Gene
  Gene
  A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
  
   variations for the vasopressin
  Vasopressin
  Arginine vasopressin , also known as vasopressin, argipressin or antidiuretic hormone , is a neurohypophysial hormone found in most mammals, including humans. Vasopressin is a peptide hormone that controls the reabsorption of molecules in the tubules of the kidneys by affecting the tissue's...
  
   receptor could be a factor for fidelity
  Fidelity
  "Fidelity" is the quality of being faithful or loyal. Its original meaning regarded duty to a lord or a king, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis, meaning "faithful or loyal"....
  
  . (ABC)

September 1, 2008 (Monday)

• Using computer simulations, North American scientists show that our solar system
  Solar System
  The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
  
   is likely not a typical planetary system
  Planetary system
  A planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, dwarf planets , asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust...
  
  . In most scenarios either no planet
  Planet
  A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
  
  s form or if they do they are brought close to the star
  Star
  A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
  
   and acquire elliptical orbits. (FutureOfThings)