Gas Giants Form Quickly

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Gas-giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn form soon after their stars do, according to new research.
Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that gas giants either form within the first 10 million years of a sun-like star's life, or not at all. The study offers new evidence that gas-giant planets must form early in a star's history. The lifespan of sun-like stars is about 10 billion years.
Ilaria Pascucci of the University of Arizona Steward Observatory in Tucson led a team of astronomers who conducted the most comprehensive search for gas around 15 different sun-like stars, most with ages ranging from 3 million to 30 million years.

Read more (http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2007-02/release.shtml)

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Not only, but also...

AAAS: University of Washington release: Earth's strongest winds wouldn't even be a breeze on these planets (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/uow-esw010507.php)

New measurements for three planets outside our solar system indicate their temperatures remain fairly constant – and blazing hot – from day to night, even though it is likely one side of each planet always faces its sun and the other is in permanent darkness.

The reason apparently is supersonic winds, perhaps as strong as 9,000 miles an hour, that constantly churn the planets' atmospheres and keep temperatures on the dark side from plunging.

The planets, gas giants similar in size to Jupiter, were discovered in the last decade orbiting stars about the same size as our sun and less than 150 light years from Earth. All of them orbit within about 5 million miles of their stars, far less than Mercury's distance from our sun.
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For the three planets in this study, the temperatures appear to be constant, likely because of the strong winds that mix the atmosphere planetwide, said Eric Agol, a University of Washington assistant professor of astronomy and co-author of a poster presenting the findings today at the American Astronomical Society national meeting in Seattle.

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Hum,
yeah, tnx, i did see that.

Web link (http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=29397)

(But quickly forgot about it ... move along now)