New discoveries ALMA studies ‘pregnant’ clouds in the Milky Way

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Planets form early and easily in baby solar systems

Before cameras and photography existed, you would never know how you looked just after you were born. The only way would be to go to a nursery, take a close look at newborn babies, and assume that you started out more or less the same. Astronomers face a similar...

Planet creates dust trap

Do you recognize this image? If you are a regular visitor of the ALMA website, you may have seen similar photos before. Yes, this is a protoplanetary disk – a flat, rotating disk of gas and dust around a newborn star. In the future, particles in the disk will...

Baby star grows thanks to magnetic fields in jets

Have you ever played with a magnet? It’s like magic. A magnet has an invisible force field. You can only see it indirectly. For instance by sprinkling iron filings on a piece of cardboard, and putting the magnet beneath the cardboard. Magnetic fields not only show up in the...

Alas, freon-40 molecule is no evidence for life

New ALMA observations reveal that the hunt for life beyond Earth is not as easy as some had hoped. Over the past decades, astronomers have detected more than 3,500 planets orbiting other stars than our own Sun. No one knows if there’s life on some of these planets. Astronomers...

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