Webb captures dusty wisps round a planet-forming disk
(A detailed view of IRAS 16594-4656 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. A bright central region is bisected by a thin, horizontal line of dark dust. Symmetrical lobes of glowing gas extend above and below, with soft blue, purple, and orange hues blending outward into surrounding space. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Villenave et al.)
"For this new Picture of the Month feature, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided a fantastic new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within the Taurus star-forming region."
"This view of IRAS 04302 features observations from Webb's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and its Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), combined with optical data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Together, these powerful facilities paint a fascinating multiwavelength portrait of a planetary birthplace."
"Two parallel studies have captured the first pictures of a protoplanet as it forms within a disk-shaped structure containing multiple rings of dust and gas (Astrophys. J., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/adf7a5 and 10.3847/2041-8213/adf721). With images and data obtained at both visible and infrared wavelengths, the confirmed sighting offers a model system for astronomers to study the mechanisms that enable planets to form and grow."
(image left: An optical image of the WISPIT-2 system reveals a protoplanet (purple dot) within a gap in a multi-ringed disk of gas and dust [Image: Laird Close, University of Arizona] image right: An image taken of WISPIT-2 in infrared wavelengths reveals the detailed structure of the protoplanetary disk [Image: ESO/R F van Capelleveen et al.])
"Many of the planet-forming disks that surround young stars have been observed to display multiple rings with gaps between them, suggesting that the material is being subsumed into a growing planet. However, only three of these protoplanets have been discovered to date, and none of these have been seen within a gap in the ring structure.
In this case, the astronomers turned their attention to WISPIT-2, a young star with a mass similar to our sun. Suspecting that the disk orbiting this star might harbor one or more emerging planets, they observed the system at visible wavelengths using the Magellan Telescopes and in the near-infrared using the Very Large Telescope, both of which are located in Chile’s Atacama Desert."
"“As planets form and grow, they suck in hydrogen gas from their surroundings,” explains Laird Close of the University of Arizona, USA, who led the team that built the MagAO-X system. “When the gas hits the surface of the protoplanet it creates extremely hot plasma that in turn emits a particular light signature.”"
"Astronomers spot young planet shaping spiral arms in dusty stellar disk"
"The image to the left, taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a possible planet being born around the young star HD 135344B. This star, located around 440 light-years away, is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas with prominent spiral arms. Theory predicts that planets can sculpt spiral arms like these, and the new planet candidate is located at the base of one of the arms, just as expected. The image was captured with a new VLT instrument: the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS). The central black circle corresponds to a coronagraph––a device that blocks the light of the star to reveal faint details around it. The white circle indicates the location of the planet. The image to the right is a combination of previous observations taken with the SPHERE instrument also at the VLT (red) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, orange and blue). These and other previous studies of HD 135344B did not find signatures of a companion, but ERIS may have finally unveiled the culprit responsible for the star's spiral disk. Credit: ESO/F. Maio et al./T. Stolker et al./ ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/N. van der Marel et al."
"Newly discovered Midpoint cloud offers a rare glimpse into star formation and the dynamic flow of galactic material toward the Milky Way's center"
(Image credit: collage created by NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/P.Vosteen.)
"An international team of astronomers has discovered a massive cloud of gas and dust located in a little-known region of our Milky Way galaxy. The Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) is about 60 parsecs—or 200 light years—long."
"“One of the big discoveries of the paper was the GMC itself. No one had any idea this cloud existed until we looked at this location in the sky and found the dense gas. Through measurements of the size, mass, and density, we confirmed this was a giant molecular cloud,” shares Natalie Butterfield, an NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) scientist and lead author of this paper.
“These dust lanes are like hidden rivers of gas and dust that are carrying material into the center of our galaxy,” explained Butterfield. “The Midpoint cloud is a place where material from the galaxy’s disk is transitioning into the more extreme environment of the galactic center and provides a unique opportunity to study the initial gas conditions before accumulating in the center of our galaxy.”"
This month's NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month offers us a two-for-one on brand new stars—with some potential pla
"Protoplanetary disks like these appear around stars that have recently been born. When a clump of gas inside a larger molecular cloud collapses to form a star, unused gas and dust is left orbiting the star in a thick disk. Over time, this dust too collides and collapses, slowly forming planetesimals which can, in turn, develop into planets. The planetesimals which can't make the jump to being a fully-fledged planet are left behind as asteroids and comets orbiting the star. Gas that isn't consumed by this process is blown away by the new star's radiation over the course of tens of millions of years, ending the protoplanetary disk."
(Two images of protoplanetary discs side-by-side. The left image shows a dark horizontal band covering the star, with broad, colourful, conical outflows above and below it, and a narrow jet pointing directly up and down from the star. The right image shows the star within a yellow dusty disc, with scattered dust creating purple lobes above and below the disc. Each is on a black background with several galaxies or stars around it. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, ESA/Hubble, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), G. Duchêne, M. Villenave)
"This is how our own solar system formed in the distant past, creating the asteroids, comets, gas giants and terrestrial planets we know today. By observing other protoplanetary disks at a much earlier age, we can work out how this process worked for our own solar system, and how the different kinds of planets we see across the galaxy could have formed."
“In 2024, planets were discovered around Young Stellar Objects (YSO) which are determined to be only thousands of years old—not the millions of years as in the conventional gravitational theory—stimulating a new understanding how planets are born.
Independent researcher Stuart Talbott explains how planet formation is caused by the effect of electromagnetism, specifically, the electromagnetic Z-pinch.”
It is anticipated that within just a few decades, the surging volume of digital data will constitute one of the world's largest energy consu
"It is anticipated that within just a few decades, the surging volume of digital data will constitute one of the world's largest energy consumers. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have made a breakthrough that could shift the paradigm: an atomically thin material that enables two opposing magnetic forces to coexist—dramatically reducing energy consumption in memory devices by a factor of 10."
"The article, "Coexisting Non-Trivial Van der Waals Magnetic Orders Enable Field-Free Spin-Orbit Torque Magnetization Dynamics" has been published in Advanced Materials.
Memory units are essential components in virtually all modern technologies that process and store information—AI systems, smartphones, computers, autonomous vehicles, household appliances and medical devices. Magnetism has emerged as a key player in the evolution of digital memory."
"In physics and engineering, two fundamental magnetic states are typically considered: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. Ferromagnetism is the familiar phenomenon (seen in everyday magnets) that attracts materials like iron, nickel or cobalt. In this state, electrons align uniformly (...) creating a unified magnetic field that is externally visible.
In contrast, antiferromagnetism involves electrons with opposing spins, causing their magnetic states to cancel each other out. Combining these two opposing forces offers significant scientific and technical advantages, making them perfect for computer memory and sensors. But until now, this has only been possible by stacking different ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials in multilayer structures.
"Unlike these complex, multilayered systems, we've succeeded in integrating both magnetic forces into a single, two-dimensional crystal structure. It's like a perfectly pre-assembled magnetic system—something that couldn't be replicated using conventional materials."
“An electric star wouldn’t begin with a molecular cloud. It would begin with charge separation. Everything we see in the universe, with the possible exception of a few specks of planets and reflection nebulas, is ionized to some degree.
It’s a PLASMA, the fourth and dominant state of matter. Positive ions and negative electrons move, and because protons are a few thousand times more massive than electrons, any force–electrical, magnetic, gravitational, even mechanical–can cause some separation of charges.
An immeasurably small surplus of one electron or proton in a volume of cubic meters is what's necessary for a weak electric field to exist in deep space. That electric field drives an electric current, which generates a magnetic field that interacts with the fields of other currents.
Science critic Mel Acheson explains why it’s the Gravity Universe, not the Electric Universe, that’s impossible.”
