Search results for planetesimals

Astronomy 22 hours ago

In a distant stellar system, the JWST sees the end of planet formation

Every time a star forms, it represents an explosion of possibilities. Not for the star itself; its fate is governed by its mass. The possibilities it signifies are in the planets that form around it. Will some be rocky? Will ...

Space Exploration Mar 1, 2024

When an object like 'Oumuamua comes around again, we could be ready with an interstellar object explorer

On October 19th, 2017, astronomers with the Pann-STARRS survey observed an interstellar object passing through our system—1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua. This was the first time an ISO was detected, confirming that such objects pass ...

Planetary Sciences Mar 4, 2024

James Webb Space Telescope captures the end of planet formation

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars.

Planetary Sciences Jan 12, 2024

Planetesimals are buffeted by wind in their nebula, throwing debris into space: Study

Before planets form around a young star, the protosolar disk is populated with innumerable planetesimals. Over time, these planetesimals combine to form planets, and the core accretion theory explains how that happens. But ...

Astronomy Jan 9, 2024

Meteorite analysis shows Earth's building blocks contained water

When our sun was a young star, 4.56 billion years ago, what is now our solar system was just a disk of rocky dust and gas. Over tens of millions of years, tiny dust pebbles coalesced, like a snowball rolling larger and larger, ...

Astronomy Feb 27, 2024

Dust growth model finds planets may form more easily than previously thought

The building blocks of new planets could form more easily than previously thought, according to calculations by a team led by a RIKEN astrophysicist.

Astronomy Feb 9, 2024

Researchers discover cosmic dust storms from Type 1a supernova

Cosmic dust—like dust on Earth—comprises groupings of molecules that have condensed and stuck together in a grain. But the exact nature of dust creation in the universe has long been a mystery. Now, however, an international ...

Astronomy Jan 10, 2024

Webb discovers dusty 'cat's tail' in Beta Pictoris System

Beta Pictoris, a young planetary system located just 63 light-years away, continues to intrigue scientists even after decades of in-depth study. It possesses the first dust disk imaged around another star—a disk of debris ...

Astronomy Feb 1, 2023

Numerical simulations of planetesimal formation reproduce key properties of asteroids, comets

With simulations that go into finer details than ever before, Brooke Polak of the University of Heidelberg and Hubert Klahr at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) have modeled a key phase in the formation of planets ...

Planetary Sciences Dec 14, 2022

New study says left-over planetesimals, not asteroids, created the moon's largest craters

The moon's pock-marked surface tells the story of its history. It's marked by over 9,000 impact craters, according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU.) The largest ones are called impact basins, not craters. Now, ...

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