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Sunrise at Wild Goose Island in Glacier National Park Montana

Geoffrey Thoorens

Spontaneous 'dust traps:' Astronomers discover a missing link in planet formation

Planets are thought to form in the disks of dust and gas found around young stars. But astronomers have struggled to assemble a complete theory of their origin that explains how the initial dust develops into planetary systems. A French-UK-Australian team now think they have the answer, with their simulations showing the formation of ‘dust traps’ where pebble-sized fragments collect and stick together, to grow into the building blocks of planets. They publish their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Our Solar system, and other planetary systems, began life with disks of gas and dust grains around a young star. The processes that convert these tiny grains, each a few millionths of a metre (a micron) across, into aggregates a few centimetres in size, and the mechanism for making kilometre-sized 'planetesimals’ into planetary cores, are both well understood.

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Arthur Sozydai

The future is here. The future is Russia.

When a drop of water falls onto the surface of a larger body of water, the drop doesn't fall right in. Instead it merges in a series of steps, often launching a series daughter droplets upward.