Planetary Formation
Three Iron Rings Around A Star Show Where Planets are Forming
Researchers using the ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have found three iron rings around a young star about 500…
This Planet is Way Too Big for its Star
Scientists love outliers. Outliers are nature's way of telling us what its boundaries are and where its limits lie. Rather…
A Planetary System With Six Sub-Neptunes Locked in Perfect Resonance
Researchers using TESS and Cheops data found a system with six sub-Neptune-sized planets, all orbiting in direct resonance with each…
ALMA Takes Next-Level Images of a Protoplanetary Disk
The ESO's Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is perched high in the Chilean Andes. ALMA is made of 66 high-precision…
JWST Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation
Everyone knows that the James Webb Space Telescope is a ground-breaking infrared space telescope that's helping us better understand the…
JWST Searches for Planets in the Fomalhaut System
The Fomalhaut system is nearby in astronomical terms, and it's also one of the brightest stars in the night sky.…
Seeing the Moment Planets Start to Form
Nature makes few duplicates, and planets are as distinct from one another as snowflakes are. But planets all start out…
Arrokoth is Covered in Bizarre Mounds
When New Horizons flew past Arrokoth in 2019, it revealed close-up images of this enigmatic Kuiper Belt Object for the…
Hundreds of Free-Floating Planets Found in the Orion Nebula
It appears that rogue planets – free floating worlds that aren’t gravitationally bound to a parent star – might be…
This Exoplanet is Probably a Solid Ball of Metal
We can't understand nature without understanding its range. That's apparent in exoplanet science and in our theories of planetary formation.…