A new study presents the first-ever direct images of twin baby planets forming around their star. The proud mama is PDS 70, a star in the Centaurus constellation. It’s about 370 light years away.
Astronomy is advancing to the point where we can see planets forming around young stars. This was an unthinkable only a few years ago. It was only two years ago that astronomers captured the first image of a newly-forming planet.
Using Earth's most powerful array of radio telescopes, astronomers have made the first observations of a circumplanetary disk of gas and dust like the one that is believed to have birthed the moons of Jupiter.
A planetary scientist has used careful mathematical calculations to determine the density of Mercury's crust, which is thinner than anyone thought.
For the first time, astronomers have directly observed a planet in the making.
