Where other scientists found nothing, Soummer's team discovered five stars (including HD 141943, pictured at top of the page) with surrounding dust disks — the breeding grounds of planets. (discovermagazine.com)
In results presented on June 8, 2009 at the 214th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, they reported that many dark GRBs may be obscured by surrounding dust, which may hide entire stellar nurseries (NASA news release; UC Berkeley press release; Rachel Courtland, New Scientist, June 8, 2009; and Keith Cooper, Astronomy Now, June 8, 2009). (members.nova.org)
He says the brightening of the burst afterglow might be due to radiation from the GRB heating surrounding dust or reflecting off it. (sciencemag.org)