Spiral arms embrace young star

Thursday, September 29, 2016 - 15:01 in Astronomy & Space

Swirling around the young star Elias 2-27 is a stunning spiral-shape pinwheel of dust. This striking feature, seen with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), is the product of density waves – gravitational perturbations in the star's protoplanetary disk that produce sweeping arms reminiscent of a spiral galaxy, but on a much smaller scale.

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