Birth of a solar system: The first ever high-resolution image of planet formation
Feast your eyes, my friends, on this -- by far the most detailed image ever of a young star and its protoplanetary disk. Here you can see the young star HL Tau, which is only about one million years old, as dust and gas swirl around it, gradually forming into planets and asteroids. Believe it or not, a few billion years ago, this is what our very own Solar System would've looked like.
High energy 'Death Stars' may destroy planets before they form
New research from scientists at the University of Wisconsin suggests that super-huge stars can destroy the planetary discs of other protostars before the dust begins to settle -- literally.
By Joel Hruska