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Protoplanetary Disks

Image Gallery : Protoplanetary Disks

A disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star. These disks will eventually form into a planetary system around the star.

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Vimeo Thumbnail for Baseline #11 – Finding Planets That Have No Star

Baseline #11 – Finding Planets That Have No Starmore_horiz

a bright blue young star with a cloud of cold gas surrounding it

Hydrogen Cyanide in HD 163296more_horiz

False color image of protoplanetary disks side by side. Left is a ring disk showing blue scattered outer ring, green inner rings with gaps, and a yellow core. Center is a transition disk with a thin outer blue ring and thin green and yellow rings, and a large empty cavity in the center. Right is a compact small disk with thin blue and green rings, and a large inner yellow core with no gaps.

Protoplanetary Disks Side-by-Side Comparisonmore_horiz

Elias 2-27 is a young star located just 378 light-years from Earth. The star is host to a massive protoplanetary disk of gas and dust, one of the key elements to planet formation. In this graphic illustration, dust is distributed along a spiral-shaped morphology first discovered in Elias 2-27 in 2016. The larger dust grains are found along the spiral arms while the smaller dust grains are distributed all around the protoplanetary disk. Asymmetric inflows of gas were also detected during the study, indicating that there may still be material infalling into the disk. Scientists believe that Elias 2-27 may eventually evolve into a planetary system, with gravitational instabilities causing the formation of giant planets. Because this process takes millions of years to occur, scientists can only observe the beginning stages.

Why Are Gravitational Instabilities Important?more_horiz

Using gas velocity data, scientists observing Elias 2-27 were able to directly measure the mass of the young star’s protoplanetary disk and also trace dynamical perturbations in the star system. Visible in this animation are the dust continuum 0.87mm emission data (blue), along with emissions from gases C18O (yellow) and 13CO (red).

Young Star Elias 2-27 Gas Velocity Emissionsmore_horiz

Vimeo Thumbnail for NRAO’s Baseline Episode 1: Trio of Infant Planets Discovered around Newborn Star

NRAO’s Baseline Episode 1: Trio of Infant Planets Discovered around Newborn Starmore_horiz

ALMA images of the planet-forming disk with misaligned rings around triple star system GW Orionis. The image on the right is made with ALMA data taken in 2017 from Bi et al. The image on the left is made with ALMA data taken in 2018 from Kraus et al.

ALMA images of triple star system GW Orionismore_horiz

ALMA image of the planet-forming disk around the young star RU Lup, showing a giant set of spiral arms made out of gas. The structure extends to nearly 1000 astronomical units from the star.

RU Lup Spiralmore_horiz

ALMA image of the planet-forming disk around the young star RU Lup. The inset image (lower left, red disk) shows a previous (DSHARP) observation of the dust disk with rings and gaps that hint at the presence of forming planets. The new observation shows a large spiral structure (in blue), made out of gas, that spans far beyond the compact dust disk.

RU Lupmore_horiz

Vimeo Thumbnail for ‘Tatooine’ protoplanetary disks press release video

‘Tatooine’ protoplanetary disks press release videomore_horiz

Two examples of aligned and misaligned protoplanetary disks around binary stars (circumbinary disks), observed with ALMA. Binary star orbits are added for clarity.
Left: in star system HD 98800 B, the disk is misaligned with inner binary stars. The stars are orbiting each other (in this view, towards and away from us) in 315 days.
Right: in star system AK Sco, the disk is in line with the orbit of its binary stars. The stars are orbiting each other in 13.6 days.

Aligned and Misaligned Circumbinary Disksmore_horiz

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Protostars in Orion Molecular Cloudsmore_horiz

ALMA and the VLA observed more than 300 protostars and their young protoplanetary disks in Orion. This image shows a subset of stars, including a few binaries. The ALMA and VLA data compliment each other: ALMA sees the outer disk structure (visualized in blue), and the VLA observes the inner disks and star cores (orange).

VANDAM surveymore_horiz

06 – ALMA Top 10: Watching Planet Formation in Actionmore_horiz

07 – ALMA Top 10: The Sharpest View of Young Stars and Planetary Systemsmore_horiz

08 – ALMA Top 10: A Quintillion Tons of Table Salt is Found Orbiting a Young Starmore_horiz

Never-before-seen feature discovered in PDS 70

Circumplanetary Disk Discovered Postermore_horiz

HL Tau – ALMA Reveals the Birth of Planets Postermore_horiz

Showing images 1 - 18 of 43

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