Protoplanetary disks as a research area encompass the observational, theoretical, and computational study of gas- and dust-rich disks surrounding young stellar objects, which serve as the birthplaces of planets. This field investigates disk structure, composition, thermochemistry, angular momentum transport, and disk evolution through processes such as accretion, turbulence, magnetohydrodynamic effects, dust growth, and planet–disk interactions. Research integrates multiwavelength observations (e.g., ALMA, infrared spectroscopy) with radiative transfer, hydrodynamical, and chemical modeling to constrain disk lifetimes, mass budgets, and conditions for planet formation, as well as to link disk properties to emerging planetary system architectures and demographics.
Southwest Research Institute was part of an international team that demonstrated how complex organic molecules (COMs), key chemical precursors to life, could have been incorporated into Jupiter's Galilean moons during their ...
Astrobiology
Feb 23, 2026
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147
An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a characteristic pattern in planetary ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 21, 2026
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94
Gas giants are large planets mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. Although these planets have dense cores, they don't have hard surfaces. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants in our solar system, but there are many ...
Astronomy
Feb 9, 2026
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111
Have you ever found something unexpected in your hamburger? Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) were surprised to discover the very earliest phases of giant planet formation between the ...
Astronomy
Jan 6, 2026
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26
Stars and planets are inextricably linked. They form together and stars shape the fate of planets. Stars create the dusty protoplanetary disks that give birth to planets of all kinds. And when a star dies, planets are either ...
Planetary Sciences
Jan 6, 2026
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28
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was involved in yet another first discovery recently available in pre-print form on arXiv from Cicero Lu at the Gemini Observatory and his co-authors. This time, humanity's most advanced ...
Astronomy
Dec 23, 2025
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47
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the largest protoplanetary disk ever observed circling a young star. For the first time in visible light, Hubble has revealed the disk is unexpectedly chaotic and ...
Astronomy
Dec 23, 2025
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656
Stars form in massive clouds of gas called molecular clouds. As they form, they accrete gas from these clouds, and as the stars rotate, gas and dust accumulates in a rotating disk around the star called a protoplanetary disk. ...
Astronomy
Dec 5, 2025
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48
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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85
When it comes to finding baby, still-forming planets around young stars, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory is astronomers' most adept tool. ALMA has delivered many images of the protoplanetary ...
Astronomy
Nov 4, 2025
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28
