When a young solar system gets going it's little more than a young star and a rotating disk of debris. Accepted thinking says that the swirling debris is swept up in planet formation. But a new study ...

This simulation of a lone super-Earth in a protoplanetary disk takes into account the effects of dust in addition to gas, resulting in a much more realistic picture. After 2,000 orbits, narrow gaps ...

Still from a simulation of a forming planetary disk. The images show the rotating inner disk along the top half, and the shadow it casts on the outer disk in the lower half. CREDIT Rebecca Nealon / ...

Planetary systems form within protoplanetary disks rotating around protostars. The disks are expected to be unstable against their self-gravity during the early phase of their evolution 1. It is, ...

A short animation showing how turbulent forces (the Coriolis Effect and vertical shear) mix up the layers of dust and gas orbiting young stars. This animation is taken from Joseph Barranco's 3-D ...

Astronomers from the University of Warwick reveal a new phenomenon dubbed the "rocking shadow" effect that describes how disks in forming planetary systems are oriented, and how they move around their ...

Planet formation protoplanetary disk science saw a landmark advance at AAS 248, where Richard Teague of MIT presented the ...

The protoplanetary disk has an odd chemical composition. It features a surprisingly high concentration of carbon dioxide in the region in which rocky planets like Earth are expected to form and is ...

Giant planets that developed early in a star system's life could solve a mystery of why spiral structures are not observed in young protoplanetary discs, according to a new study. Giant planets that ...

Planets form in disks of dust and gas called protoplanetary disks that whirl around a central protostar during its final assembly. Planets form in disks of dust and gas called protoplanetary disks ...