Hubble images three debris disks around G-type stars

A team using the Hubble Space Telescope has imaged circumstellar disk structures (CDSs) around three stars similar to the sun. The stars are all G-type solar analogs, and the disks themselves share similarities with our Solar ...

Our sun may have eaten a super-Earth for breakfast

Our solar system sure seems like an orderly place. The orbits of the planets are predictable enough that we can send spacecraft on multi-year journeys to them and they will reliably reach their destinations. But we've only ...

The minimum mass of a proto-solar system disk

Astronomers estimate that at the time the Solar system formed, its proto-planetary disk contained the equivalent of about twenty Jupiter-masses of gas and dust. This so-called "minimum mass solar nebula (MMSN)" is derived ...

What are asteroids made of?

What are asteroids made of? Asteroids are made mostly of rock—with some composed of clay and silicate—and different metals, mostly nickel and iron. But other materials have been found in asteroids, as well.

The role of "planet traps" in solar system formation

A team from the Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Modelling laboratory at Paris-Saclay (AIM – CNRS/CEA/Université Paris Diderot) has developed a new model that represents the evolution of protoplanetary disks over millions ...

In the realm of eternal ice

On 6 November 2010, the light of the star known as NOMAD1 0856-0015072 in the Cetus constellation dimmed. What had happened? A dwarf planet at the edge of the solar system had moved in front of the distant star - its name: ...

Complex organic molecules discovered in infant star system

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star, suggesting once again that the conditions that spawned ...

New clues from the dawn of the solar system

A research group in the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory has found evidence in meteorites that hint at the discovery of a previously unknown region within the swirling disk of dust and gas known as the protoplanetary disk ...

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