Circumstellar dust as a research area focuses on the physical, chemical, and dynamical properties of solid particles in the immediate environments of stars, including protoplanetary disks, debris disks, and evolved-star envelopes. Studies address dust grain composition, size distributions, formation and destruction processes, and radiative transfer effects that govern spectral energy distributions and polarization signatures. The field integrates observations from infrared to submillimeter wavelengths with laboratory astrochemistry and dust analog experiments, as well as hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic simulations. It is central to understanding planet formation, disk evolution, stellar mass loss, and the feedback of stellar systems on the interstellar medium.
Seventy light-years from Earth, a star called Kappa Tucanae A harbors one of astronomy's most perplexing mysteries: dust so hot it glows at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, existing impossibly close to its host star, where ...
Astronomy
Dec 2, 2025
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding beyond the next in precisely the same pattern. (The fourth is almost ...
Astronomy
Nov 19, 2025
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Astronomers using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island have taken the closest-ever look at the dusty regions where planets form, offering new insight into the earliest stages of planetary birth.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 5, 2025
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A Northwestern University-led team of astronomers has captured the most detailed glimpse yet of a doomed star before it exploded. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the international team identified a supernova's ...
Astronomy
Oct 8, 2025
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Star formation is a fundamental physical process in our universe. Stars light up the cosmos, and give rise to planets, some of which may support life. While humans have no doubt wondered about stars since prehistoric times, ...
Astronomy
Sep 26, 2025
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The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has captured the motion of spirals of dust around a young star and shown that the winding motion of the spiral pattern is conducive to planet formation. This provides ...
Astronomy
Sep 25, 2025
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For this new Picture of the Month feature, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided a fantastic new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within ...
Astronomy
Aug 29, 2025
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Stars die and vanish from sight all the time, but astronomers were puzzled when one that had been stable for more than a decade almost disappeared for eight months.
Astronomy
Aug 22, 2025
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92
Astronomers have discovered a vast and expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star—the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. The bubble, which contains as much mass as the sun, was ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2025
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80
Cosmic dust does far more than float through space. It's the raw material from which stars, planets and possibly even life emerge. Yet astronomers have long puzzled over where this vast amount of dust comes from and what ...
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2025
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