ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) tagged posts

New Image Reveals Secrets of Planet Birth

The background of this image is dark, but in its centre lurks a swirling ghostly figure, which extends towards the edge of the picture. At the very centre there is a small bright region and erupting out of it there is a poorly defined, fuzzy edged cloud and blobs of material in yellow and blue, respectively. The yellow cloud extends far out in the image, making an elongated spiral shape that gets dimmer and less defined as it reaches the top and bottom of the frame. Meanwhile, the blue blobs only extend downwards from the centre and to a fraction of the distance of the yellow spiral cloud. The blobs twist away from the central bright region, forming a tight U-shape lying on its right side.
A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets.

Astronomers have gained new clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets.

A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form...

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