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.
Italian astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform polarimetric observations of the star WRAY 15-1880 and its young circumstellar disk. Results of the new observations, presented June 10 on the arXiv ...
The rotation of a protoplanetary disk (a disk where planets are being formed) has been observed directly for the very first time by mapping the emissions from the dust grains within it. The disk in question surrounds the ...
Astronomy
Jun 1, 2026
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It's 2234, you're on your annual class field trip touring exoplanets, and your teacher informs everyone they can pick one more exoplanetary system to explore before heading back to Earth. You and your classmates are exhausted ...
Astronomy
Jun 1, 2026
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A team of astronomers, led by University of Warwick in collaboration with researchers at MIT and McMaster, have developed a novel method to use the properties of dust rings around stars to estimate the masses of newborn planets. ...
Astronomy
May 28, 2026
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When the solar system formed, a disk of gas and dust orbited the young sun. Over the course of millions of years, the dust gradually clumped together to form kilometer-sized chunks known as planetesimals. Some grew into planets, ...
Planetary Sciences
May 22, 2026
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Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally "lonely" hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that's had astronomers ...
Astronomy
May 5, 2026
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Our sun is a bit of an outlier in the general stellar population. We typically think of stars as being solitary wanderers throughout the galaxy. But roughly half of sun-like stars are locked in with more than one companion ...
Astronomy
May 1, 2026
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Planets may actually form more easily around double stars than around single stars like our sun, according to new research from astrophysicists at the University of Lancashire. Binary stars are common in our galaxy, yet for ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 27, 2026
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201
An international team led by Dr. Indrani Das of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) has shown, for the first time, how infalling gas from star-forming cores gradually transitions into planet-forming ...
Astronomy
Apr 15, 2026
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Planets, like those in our solar system, form in a bottom-up process where small bits of rock and ice clump together and grow larger over time. But the heftier the planet, the harder it is to explain its formation that way.
Astronomy
Apr 14, 2026
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