protoplanetary disk Archives

July 6, 2021July 6, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers see an Accretion Disk Where Planets are About to Form

Planet formation is notoriously difficult to study. Not only does the process take millions of years, making it impossible to observe in real time, there are myriad factors that play into it, making it difficult to distinguish cause and effect. What we do know is that planets form from features known as protoplanetary disks, which are made up of gas and dust surrounding young stars. And now a team using ALMA have found a star system that has a protoplanetary disk and enough variability to help them nail down some details of how exactly the process of planet formation works.

June 7, 2021June 7, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Planets may Start Forming Before the Star is Even Finished

An illustration of a protoplanetary disk. The solar system formed from such a disk. Astronomers suggest this birthplace was protected by a larger filament of molecular gas and dust early in history. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

Planets form from the accumulation of countless grains of dust swirling around young stars. New computer simulations have found that planets begin forming earlier than previously thought, when a planet’s star hasn’t even finished forming yet.

May 10, 2021May 10, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Young Stars can Evaporate Nearby Disks Before They can Form Planets

Artist's conceptualization of the dusty TYC 8241 2652 system as it might have appeared several years ago when it was emitting large amounts of excess infrared radiation. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA artwork by Lynette Cook. https://www.gemini.edu/node/11836

Many planetary systems may get snuffed out before they even get a chance to form, according to new research. The culprit: nearby stars, capable of evaporating entire protoplanetary disks just when they begin to form.

March 10, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

This Exoplanetary System Breaks all the Rules

A cartoon of the K2-290 system, where two planets orbit backwards relative to the spin of their parent star. Image credit: Christoffer Grønne

It’s just like a normal solar system…except completely backwards.

February 4, 2021February 1, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers are now Finding Planetary Disks Around the Smallest, Least Massive Stars

Astronomers have been watching planetary systems form around sun-like stars for decades. And now, new observations with the ALMA telescope reveal the same process playing out around the smallest, but most common, stars in galaxy.

December 1, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

Spiral-shaped Planetary Disks Should Be More Common. Giant Planets Might Be Disrupting Their Formation

Planetary system formation is a process that involves astounding and complex forces. Humans have only just started trying to understand what goes on in this extraordinarily important phase of the development of new worlds. As such, we are continuing to make new discoveries and come up with better models that better fit the observations that our instruments are able to collect.

The most recent of those improved models was announced by a research team at the University of Warwick. A paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters explores possible reasons for why there is a lack of spiral structures in newly formed protoplanetary discs. Their answer is a simple one: massive planets that form on the outside of the disc might be disrupting the spiral formation.

November 26, 2020November 26, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers See a Newly Forming Planetary Disk That’s Continuing to Feed On Material from its Nebula

This false-colour image shows the filaments of accretion around the protostar [BHB2007] 1. The large structures are inflows of molecular gas (CO) nurturing the disk surrounding the protostar. The inset shows the dust emission from the disk, which is seen edge-on. The "holes" in the dust map represent an enormous ringed cavity seen (sideways) in the disk structure. Image Credit: MPE

Over the last few years, astronomers have observed distant solar systems in their early stages of growth. ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) has captured images of young stars and their disks of material. And in those disks, they’ve spotted the tell-tale gaps that signal the presence of growing young planets.

As they ramped up their efforts, astronomers were eventually able to spot the young planets themselves. All those observations helped confirm our understanding of how young solar systems form.

But more recent research adds another level of detail to the nebular hypothesis, which guides our understanding of solar system formation.

October 15, 2020October 15, 2020 by Nancy Graziano

Weekly Space Hangout: October 14, 2020, Drs. Jane Huang & Jonathan Williams, Protoplanetary Disks

This week we are joined by Dr. Jane Huang and Dr. Jonathan Willams from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). Dr. Huang, Dr. Williams, and their team recently discovered some surprising information about the size and shape of some protoplanetary disks.

August 8, 2020August 14, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Newly forming star has spiral arms like a tiny galaxy

Planets form by accreting material from a protoplanetary disk. New research suggests it can happen quickly, and that Earth may have formed in only a few million years. Credit: NASA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Protoplanetary disks – where young stars are forming their families of planets – usually form concentric rings of gaps. But astronomers have recently spotted a surprising situation: an adolescent star surrounded by galaxy-like spiral arms.

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020 by Evan Gough

Planets Form in Just a Few Hundred Thousand Years

Astronomers like to observe young planets forming in circumstellar debris disks, the rotating rings of material around young stars. But when they measure the amount of material in those disks, they don’t contain enough material to form large planets. That discrepancy has puzzled astronomers.

The answer might come down to timing.

A new study suggests that planets form much quicker than astronomers think.