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Planetary Systems

All 74 exocomet belts as imaged in this study.

Astronomers Map Ice Reservoirs Around 74 Nearby Stars in Landmark Survey

Hubble and Webb Observations of Vega Circumstellar Debris Disk. [left]-A Hubble Space Telescope false-color view of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around the summer star Vega. Hubble detects reflected light from dust that is the size of smoke particles largely in a halo on the periphery of the disk. The disk is very smooth, with no evidence of embedded large planets. The black spot at the center blocks out the bright glow of the hot young star. [right]-The James Webb Space Telescope resolves the glow of warm dust in a disk halo, at 23 billion miles out. The outer disk (analogous to the solar system’s Kuiper Belt) extends from 7 billion miles to 15 billion miles. The inner disk extends from the inner edge of the outer disk down to close proximity to the star. There is a notable dip in surface brightness of the inner disk from approximately 3.7 to 7.2 billion miles. The black spot at the center is due to lack of data from saturation.

Hubble and Webb Reveal Mysteriously Smooth Disk Around Bright Star Vega

This artist’s impression of a planet-forming disk surrounding a young star shows a swirling "pancake" of hot gas and dust from which planets form. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the team obtained detailed images showing the layered, conical structure of disk winds – streams of gas blowing out into space.

Webb Space Telescope reveals elusive details in young star systems

space illustratioon

NASA’s Webb discovers dusty ‘cat’s tail’ in Beta Pictoris System

Artist’s concept of Kepler-385, the seven-planet system revealed in a new catalog of planet candidates discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Credit: Daniel Rutter/NASA. All Rights Reserved.

Many planets beyond our solar system follow nearly circular orbital paths

Planet orbiting 2 stars discovered using new technique

Earth’s water did not come from melted meteorites, according to a new study that analyzed melted meteorites that had been floating around in space since the solar system’s formation four and a half billion years ago. These meteorites had extremely low water content, regardless of their origin in the outer or inner solar system, ruling them out as the primary source of Earth’s water. The dashed white line in the attached illustration is the boundary with the outer solar system showing material transport from the outer solar system to the inner solar system.

Where did Earth’s water come from? Not melted meteorites, study reports

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