protostars
A Star Became 1,000 Times Brighter, and Now Astronomers Know Why
Astronomers were surprised in 1937 when a star in a binary pair suddenly brightened by 1,000 times. The pair is…
Webb Finds Icy Complex Organic Molecules Around Protostars: Ethanol, Methane, Formaldehyde, Formic Acid and Much More
In the quest to understand how and where life might arise in the galaxy, astronomers search for its building blocks.…
JWST Reveals a Newly-Forming Double Protostar
As our newest, most perceptive eye on the ongoing unfolding of the cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing…
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…
It’s Like Looking at the Infant Sun: Webb Captures Image of an Energetic Young Star
Ever wondered what our young Sun might have looked like in its infancy some five billion years ago? The audacious…
Baby Gas Giants Cast Shadows on Their Siblings
A team of astronomers has caught glimpses of gas giants forming around a very young star. The nascent giants are…
Planets Have Just Started to Form in This Binary System
Astronomers have watched the young binary star system SVS 13 for decades. Astronomers don't know much about how planets form…
The Youngest Stellar Disk Ever Seen, Just 500,000 Years Old
Unless you’re reading this in an aircraft or the International Space Station, then you’re currently residing on the surface of…
We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars
A new study shows how massive young stars create the kind of organic molecules that are necessary for life. A…
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…