New discoveries ALMA discovers moons in the making

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Disks of dense gas feed ‘Cookie Monster’ black holes

Most galaxies have black holes in their cores. Quite often, those huge black holes are pretty quiet, like the black hole in the core of our own Milky Way galaxy. But sometimes, huge amounts of gas and dust are drawn inward. This material becomes very hot and starts to...

Planet-forming disk has lawn-sprinkler-like spiral arms

Astronomers know how planets like our own Earth were born. When the Sun was young, it was surrounded by a flat, rotating disk of gas and dust. Dust particles, pebbles, and small rocks in this protoplanetary disk slowly clumped together to form Earth-like planets. But the origin of giant...

40-year-old supernova is efficient dust factory

Forty years ago, in February 1987, a cosmic explosion took place in the southern sky. It was first discovered by astronomers Ian Shelton and Oscar Duhalde, at an observatory in Chile. But this was not the ALMA observatory. Back then, ALMA hadn’t been built yet. No one even had...

Black hole in remote galaxy acts like cosmic thermostat

A thermostat is a device that can regulate the temperature in your living room. If it becomes too cold, the thermostat fires up the central heating. If it becomes too hot, the heating is shut down. Now, using ALMA, astronomers have discovered something like a cosmic thermostat in a...

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