• Public

  • Public
  • Network
  • Groups
  • Featured
  • Popular
  • People

What appears to be a ripple in space, is today’s Picture of the Week depicting a newborn planet eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits its host star. This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings. These so-called protoplanetary discs surround young stars and appear as disc-shaped structures of gas and dust, often with rings like the one in this image. They are the birthplace of planets, and the rings are thought to indicate the presence of (hungry) planets in the disc. Initially, little particles in the spinning disc begin to accumulate and grow as gravity takes over, stealing more material from the native disc until they evolve into embryo planets.