protoplanetary disk
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…
Even More Complex Organic Molecules Have Been Found in a Protoplanetary Disc. Was Life Inevitable?
Will we ever understand life's origins? Will we ever be able to put our finger on the exact moment and…
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…
Rings in the Early Solar System Kept our Planet From Becoming a Super-Earth
A team led by Rice University has created a new model of planetary formation that answer how the Solar System…
This is How You Get Moons. An Earth-Sized World Just got Pummeled by Something Huge.
Titanic collisions are the norm in young solar systems. Earth's Moon was the result of one of those collisions when…
The Early Solar System Had a Gap Where the Asteroid Belt is Today
Wind the cosmic clock back a few billion years and our Solar System looked much different than it does today.…
Protoplanetary Disks Throw Out More Material Than Gets Turned Into Planets
When a young solar system gets going it's little more than a young star and a rotating disk of debris.…
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…
Planets may Start Forming Before the Star is Even Finished
Planets form from the accumulation of countless grains of dust swirling around young stars. New computer simulations have found that…
Young Stars can Evaporate Nearby Disks Before They can Form Planets
Many planetary systems may get snuffed out before they even get a chance to form, according to new research. The…