Stunning Real Images of Planet Formation
ALMA Image Reveals Planetary Genesis, ESO
“This new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, reveals extraordinarily fine detail that has never been seen before in the planet-forming disc around a young star. These are the first observations that have used ALMA in its near-final configuration and the sharpest pictures ever made at submillimeter wavelengths. The new results are an enormous step forward in the observation of how protoplanetary discs develop and how planets form.”
Keith’s note: This is a REAL IMAGE – not an artist’s concept. Update: here’s another – from Hubble.
Hubble Surveys Debris-Strewn Exoplanetary Construction Yards
“Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.”
I’ve read about protoplanetary disks and how we all came to be. Always wondered how we know and how we might prove it or at least find evidence for it. This just knocked my socks off. What a beautiful piece of work and what an accomplishment to put not one but an entire array of radio telescopes on that mountain.
It’s Keith’s featuring the photo-planet that made me think that many of the denizens here would find Paul Gilster’s site as fascinating as I do:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org
It’s for those among us who, like me, are interested in the longer term planning and technology that will be needed to get mankind to a different star (without the science fiction). Paul offers a wonderful site that you will find very satisfying:
It’s the home of the Tau Zero Foundation (the reference is left to the reader); their motto is Ad Aspera Increments .
Each day, Gilster reviews scientific papers offering ideas on how to achieve the long term goal of sending humans to a different star; he has a current fascination with sail ships but countless technology is discussed. Frequent visitors include the Benford brothers, Stan Robinson, and other-well, stellar thinkers. The Benfords’ interests in powered sails are discussed frequently, as are other propulsion and spaceship design issues. Commenters, too, read like Who’s Who.
And Paul Gilster is the writer I wish I could be: very polished, concise, polite, a joy to read. I’ve followed him for 5 years or so. I had a chance to meet him in 2012 at the Hundred Years Conference in Orlando.
(Keith: Centauri Dreams is clearly related to your site, and cross-linking is what the net’s about; but I would understand any desire on your part to delete this post).
It’s almost as good as going back in a time machine and observing our own solar system when it was forming. Of course we don’t know how well this represents our solar system but even so it is really stunning, both the photos and also the impact that this should have on the scientific theories about how planetary systems are formed including ours.