#alma

#alma

Astronomers Discovered First Planet to Orbit 3 StarsResearchers and colleagues from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) may have discovered the first planet orbiting three stars. That's right. Not one. Not two. But three stars. The star system was found only 1,300 light-years away from Earth.Now you might think that this is highly unusual, but it isn't. It is believed that half of the star systems have two or more stars gravitationally bound to each other.The planet was observed via the Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, and scientists believe that the said planet is a gas giant. Research lead author Jeremy Smallwood states that gas giants form first before terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars.(All Images: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / University of Exeter / Kraus et al. via Sci-News)#Astronomy #StarSystem #CircumtripleOrbit #ALMA

NASA Found Massive "Dead" Galaxies that Ran Out of Fuel to Create StarsBack when it was just 3 billion years old, our universe experienced its most prolific period of star birth. Back then, galaxies formed stars here and there, thanks to the abundance of cold hydrogen gas. However, despite this abundance, some galaxies "died" at this period in time. And these weren't your ordinary galaxies. These were massive galaxies.So what happened to their supply of cold gas? Kate Whitaker, the lead author of this cosmic study, asks this question and proposes some possible explanations.The first possible explanation is that a supermassive black hole heated all the gas. Another was that these galaxies used up all their gas supply as they tried to make stars as quickly as possible.The study of these dead galaxies was made possible through the combination of data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).More about this over at NASA.(Image Credit: NASA/ ALMA; Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))#Astronomy #Galaxies #StarFormation #NASA #ALMA

Astronomers Found a Moon-Forming Disc Around an Exoplanet 400 Light-Year AwayYou've probably seen images of circumplanetary disc - or ring of matter that orbit a planet - on the cover of imaginative sci-fi novels before, but astronomers have finally captured the first image of such actual disc around a planet outside of our solar system.Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, astronomer Myriam Benisty and colleagues observed a disc surrounding the exoplanet PDS 70c, a giant Jupiter-like planet orbiting a star 400 light-years away."Our ALMA observations were obtained at such exquisite resolution that we could clearly identify that the disc is associated with the planet and we are able to constrain its size for the first time," Benisty said in a statement by the European Southern Observatory.Astronomers noted that the disc surrounding PDS 70c is huge: it's about 500 times larger than Saturn's rings.Circumplanetary discs are thought to play a significant role in the formation of moons and satellites, as its gas and dust come together into progressively larger bodies through multiple collisions, ultimately becoming moons.Images:ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Benisty et al.#circumplanetarydisc #ALMA #astronomy #astrophysics #EuropeanSouthernObservatory #PDS70c #planet #exoplanet #moonformingdisc