New low-mass objects could help refine planetary evolution
Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - 03:41
in Astronomy & Space
When a star is young, it is often still surrounded by a primordial rotating disk of gas and dust, from which planets can form. Astronomers like to find such disks because they might be able to catch the star partway through the planet formation process, but it's highly unusual to find such disks around brown dwarfs or stars with very low masses. New work has discovered four new low-mass objects surrounded by disks.