The universe has long been a mystery waiting to be unraveled. Recent discoveries have shed new light on one of its most fascinating phenomena: planet formation around young stars. Research led by Ayumu Shoshi and his team at Kyushu University and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) reveals that signs of planet formation may appear earlier than expected, providing a better understanding of this complex process.

The journey to form planets begins with protostars – stars still in the making. These nascent stars are surrounded by disks composed of low-temperature molecular gas and dust, known as protoplanetary disks. It’s within these disks that planets take shape. However, observing these early stages of planet formation directly is a challenge due to their distance from Earth.

The research team utilized improved data processing techniques to reanalyze archive data from the ALMA radio telescope. Their focus was on the Ophiuchus star-forming region, located 460 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. The team produced high-resolution images of 78 disks, with more than half achieving a resolution over three times better than previous images.

The new images show striking patterns – ring or spiral shapes – in 27 of the disks, with 15 identified for the first time in this study. Combining these findings with previous work on another star-forming region, the team discovered that characteristic disk substructures emerge in disks larger than 30 astronomical units (au) around stars just a few hundred thousand years after they were born.

This groundbreaking research suggests that planets may begin to form at an earlier stage than previously believed, when the disk still possesses abundant gas and dust. In essence, planets grow together with their very young host stars, opening doors to new insights into the origins of our solar system and potentially habitable planets like Earth.

Astronomers have created a galactic masterpiece: an ultra-detailed image that reveals previously unseen features in the Sculptor Galaxy. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they observed this nearby galaxy in thousands of colors simultaneously. By capturing vast amounts of data at every single location, they created a galaxy-wide snapshot of the lives of stars within Sculptor.

“Galaxies are incredibly complex systems that we are still struggling to understand,” says ESO researcher Enrico Congiu, who led a new Astronomy & Astrophysics study on Sculptor. Reaching hundreds of thousands of light-years across, galaxies are extremely large, but their evolution depends on what’s happening at much smaller scales.

“The Sculptor Galaxy is in a sweet spot,” says Congiu. “It is close enough that we can resolve its internal structure and study its building blocks with incredible detail, but at the same time, big enough that we can still see it as a whole system.”

A galaxy’s building blocks — stars, gas and dust — emit light at different colors. Therefore, the more shades of color there are in an image of a galaxy, the more we can learn about its inner workings. While conventional images contain only a handful of colors, this new Sculptor Galaxy image is rendered in thousands of colors, revealing intricate details that would have been lost otherwise.

This extraordinary image not only showcases the beauty and complexity of the Sculptor Galaxy but also serves as a testament to human ingenuity and scientific curiosity. By pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible with astronomical observations, researchers continue to expand our understanding of the cosmos and inspire new generations of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy.

Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner.

ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvelous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor.

The Milky Way’s central region has long been a subject of fascination for astronomers, but recent research led by Dr. James De Buizer at the SETI Institute and Dr. Wanggi Lim at IPAC at Caltech has revealed a surprising finding: massive star formation is occurring in this area at a lower rate than expected. The study primarily relied on observations from NASA’s retired SOFIA airborne observatory, focusing on three star-forming regions – Sgr B1, Sgr B2, and Sgr C – located at the heart of the Galaxy.

Contrary to previous assumptions that star formation is likely depressed near the Galactic Center, these areas have been found to produce stars with relatively low masses. Despite their dense clouds of gas and dust, conditions typically conducive to forming massive stars, these regions struggle to create such high-mass stars. Furthermore, they appear to lack sufficient material for continued star formation, suggesting that only one generation of stars is produced.

The researchers discovered over 60 presently-forming massive stars within the Galactic Center regions, but found that these areas formed fewer stars and topped out at lower stellar masses than similar-sized regions elsewhere in the Galaxy. The team’s study also suggested that extreme conditions in the Galactic Center, such as its rapid rotation and interaction with older stars and material falling towards the black hole, might be inhibiting gas clouds from forming stars.

However, Sgr B2 was found to be an exception among the studied areas, maintaining a reservoir of dense gas and dust despite having an unusually low rate of present massive star formation. The researchers proposed that this region may represent a new category of stellar nursery or challenge traditional assumptions about giant H II regions hosting massive star clusters.

The study’s findings have significant implications for our understanding of star formation in the Milky Way, highlighting the importance of continued research into the complex dynamics at play within the Galactic Center.