For the first time, astronomers have been able to peer into the heart of planet formation, recording the temperature and amount of gas present in the regions most prolific for making planets.
Astronomy
May 16, 2017
1
144
A star with a ring of planets orbiting around it - that is the picture we know from our own solar system and from many of the thousands of exoplanets observed in recent years. But now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute ...
Astronomy
Oct 11, 2016
1
0
Astronomers have found a distinct structure involving spiral arms in the reservoir of gas and dust disk surrounding the young star Elias 2-27. While spiral features have been observed on the surfaces of protoplanetary disks, ...
Astronomy
Sep 29, 2016
75
281
When a star is young, it is often still surrounded by a primordial rotating disk of gas and dust, from which planets can form. Astronomers like to find such disks because they might be able to catch the star partway through ...
Astronomy
Sep 26, 2016
0
24
Astronomers found signs of a growing planet around TW Hydra, a nearby young star, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Based on the distance from the central star and the distribution of tiny dust ...
Astronomy
Sep 14, 2016
6
34
Cool brown dwarfs are a hot topic in astronomy right now. Smaller than stars and bigger than giant planets, they hold promise for helping us understand both stellar evolution and planet formation. New work from a team including ...
Astronomy
Sep 6, 2016
4
1474
Planet formation is a complex and tumultuous process that remains shrouded in mystery. Astronomers have discovered more than 3,000 exoplanets—planets orbiting stars other than our Sun—however, nearly all are middle-aged, ...
Astronomy
Jun 20, 2016
2
621
Our Earth consists of silicate rocks and an iron core with a thin veneer of water and life. But the first potentially habitable worlds to form might have been very different. New research suggests that planet formation in ...
Astronomy
Jun 7, 2016
59
1624
In contradiction to the long-standing idea that larger planets take longer to form, U.S. astronomers today announced the discovery of a giant planet in close orbit around a star so young that it still retains a disk of circumstellar ...
Astronomy
May 26, 2016
3
1558
A new analysis of the ALMA data for a young star HL Tauri provides yet more firm evidence of baby planets around the star. Researchers uncovered two gaps in the gas disk around HL Tauri. The locations of these gaps in the ...
Astronomy
May 24, 2016
4
970
