The debate over the presence of silicates isn't the only controversy the work has triggered. Astronomers are also discussing the race that led up to this week's publication on HD 209458b. Jeremy Richardson and his colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used the Spitzer telescope to make measurements of the planet in July 2005. By Spitzer rules, they had sole use of the data for 12 months, at which point the data were made publicly available.
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