Gas guzzlers: New insights into birth of giant planets
- Published: 3 Jan 2013 at 01.45
- Online news: World
Astronomers using the most advanced land telescope in the world said on Wednesday they had unlocked knowledge about how formidable "gas giant" planets such Jupiter and Saturn come into being.
This image, released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), shows an artist's impression of the disc of gas and cosmic dust around the young star HD 142527. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have seen vast streams of gas flowing across the gap in the disc.
These vast but uninhabitable worlds are created by gobbling up gas and dust that envelope young stars in a murky disc, they believe.
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