Tag Archives: gas giant planet

James Webb Space Telescope joins hunt for newborn exoplanets

Astronomers use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look for planets in the process of forming around baby stars. The powerful space telescope delivered the goods quickly, albeit unexpectedly. These baby planets are forming into swirling clumps of gas and dust called protoplanetary disks, accumulating more mass as they do so. Humanity has imaged… Read More »

Newborn gas planets may be surprisingly flat – new research

A new planet begins life in a rotating ring of gas and dust, a cradle known as a protostellar disk. My colleagues and I used computer simulations to show that newborn gas planets in these disks likely have surprisingly flattened shapes. This finding, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, could add to our… Read More »