HL Tau tagged posts

ALMA image of HL Tau at left; VLA image, showing clump of dust, at right. Credit: Carrasco-Gonzalez, et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

New images of a young star made with Very Large Array (VLA) reveal what scientists think may be the very earliest stages in the formation of planets, 450 light-years from Earth. A previous 2014 ALMA image showed gaps in the disk, presumably caused by planet-like bodies sweeping out the dust along their orbits. This image, showing in real life what theorists had proposed for years, was surprising, however, because the star, called HL Tau, is only about a million years old – very young by stellar standards.

The ALMA image showed details of the system in the outer portions of the disk, but in the inner portions of the disk, nearest to the young star, the thick...

An illustration shows the HD 142527 binary star system from data captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The red body orbiting the center represents the low-mass companion star. Click image for a larger version. Illustration by B. Saxton/NRAO/AUI/NSF

Rice Uni Assistant Professor Andrea Isella presented images of binary system HD 142527 by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. The system has long been known to harbor a planet-forming corona of dust and gas, but ALMA images are providing more detail than ever and allowing for better analysis of the system’s contents and mechanics.

Isella studies the formation of planetary systems...