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.
Astronomers have observed two planets forming in the disk around a young star named WISPIT 2. Having previously detected one planet, the team has now employed European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes to confirm the ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 24, 2026
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52
How does fine dust aggregate into building blocks that ultimately form entire planets like our Earth? A research team led by the University of Bern, with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the National ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 17, 2026
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29
We're starting to see just how exceptional our own solar system and its history is, as more exoplanets are discovered. A fourth exoplanet discovery in the LHS 1903 system made by ESA's CHEOPS mission places a rocky world ...
Astronomy
Mar 15, 2026
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87
To uncover the history of our solar system, it is necessary to study the dynamic evolution of the ancient solar nebula materials. These materials interacted and coevolved with the weak but widespread magnetic field of the ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 3, 2026
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43
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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