Planetary Formation
Where Are All These Rogue Planets Coming From?
There's a population of planets that drifts through space untethered to any stars. They're called rogue planets or free-floating planets…
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…
In a Distant Solar System, the JWST Sees the End of Planet Formation
Every time a star forms, it represents an explosion of possibilities. Not for the star itself; its fate is governed…
Astronomers Image 62 Newly-Forming Planetary Systems
Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile have now completed one of the largest surveys ever to hunt for…
Massive Stars Have the Power to Shape Solar Systems
Stars shape their solar systems. It's true of ours, and it's true of others. But for some massive stars, their…
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…
A Planetary Disk in the Orion Nebula is Destroying and Replenishing Oceans of Water Every Month
Planet-forming disks are places of chaotic activity. Not only do planetesimals slam together to form larger worlds, but it now…
Radio Telescope Confirms Free-Floating Binary Planets in the Orion Nebula
Planets orbit stars. That's axiomatic. Or at least it was until astronomers started finding rogue planets, also called free-floating planets…
Some Young Planets Are Flattened Smarties, not Spheres.
One of contemporary astronomy's most pressing questions concerns planet formation. We can see more deeply than ever into very young…