planet formation
The JWST Reveals New Things About How Planetary Systems Form
Every second in the Universe, more than 3,000 new stars form as clouds of dust and gas undergo gravitational collapse.…
Astronomers Have Found a Star with a Hot Jupiter and a Cold Super Jupiter in Orbit
Located in the constellation Ursa Major, roughly 300 light-years from Earth, is the Sun-like star HD 118203 (Liesma). In 2006,…
ALMA Detects Hallmark “Wiggle” of Gravitational Instability in Planet-Forming Disk
According to Nebula Theory, stars and their systems of planets form when a massive cloud of gas and dust (a…
Webb Joins the Hunt for Protoplanets
We can't understand what we can't clearly see. That fact plagues scientists who study how planets form. Planet formation happens…
This Planet-Forming Disk has More Water Than Earth’s Oceans
Astronomers have detected a large amount of water vapour in the protoplanetary disk around a young star. There's at least…
How We Get Planets from Clumping Dust
Our gleaming Earth, brimming with liquid water and swarming with life, began as all rocky planets do: dust. Somehow, mere…
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…
JWST Reveals Protoplanetary Disks in a Nearby Star Cluster
The Orion Nebula is a favourite among stargazers, certainly one of mine. It’s a giant stellar nebula out of which,…
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…