Planetary Formation
Jupiter is up to 9% Rock and Metal, Which Means it Ate a lot of Planets in its Youth
Jupiter is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. The amounts of each closely conform to the theoretical quantities in…
We’ve Now Seen Planet-Forming Disks Around Hundreds of Young Stars. What Do They Tell Us?
Is our Solar System comparable to other solar systems? What do other systems look like? We know from exoplanet studies…
Hubble Has Been Watching This Planet Form for 13 Years
Hubble's most remarkable feature might be its longevity. The Hubble has been operating for almost 32 years and has fed…
Primordial Helium, Left Over From the Big Bang, is Leaking Out of the Earth
Something ancient and primordial lurks in Earth's core. Helium 3 (3He) was created in the first minutes after the Big…
Astronomers See the Wreckage Where Planets Crashed Into Each Other in a Distant Star System
Our Solar System was born in chaos. Collisions shaped and built the Earth and the other planets, and even delivered…
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…
Mini-Neptunes can Lose gas and Turn Into Super-Earths
Can one type of planet become another? Can a mini-Neptune lose its atmosphere and become a super-Earth? Astronomers have found…
A Second Generation of Planets can Form Around a Dying Star
When young stars coalesce out of a cloud of molecular hydrogen, a disk of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk…
A Star Passed too Close and Tore Out a Chunk of a Protoplanetary Disk
When it comes to observing protoplanetary disks, the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) is probably the champion. ALMA was the…
There’s So Much Pressure at the Earth’s Core, it Makes Iron Behave in a Strange Way
It's one of nature's topsy-turvy tricks that the deep interior of the Earth is as hot as the Sun's surface.…