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Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the building-heavenly-bodies dept.

Astroturtle writes "The Hubble Space Telescope's new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has captured a detailed image of spiral rings in a distant protoplanetary disk -- the pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star in which planets are expected to condense. But contrary to earlier suggestions, the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form."

2 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Nics pics. by Eevee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't say spectacular, but the photos are impressive for the detail available. (I'm spoiled from all the color nebula shots.) The spiral formations are easily visible, even without the 'cheatsheet' image.

    Shame the images can't capture all the close-in dust. Considering that Pluto's only 40 a.u. out, having data from almost 100 a.u. around the star missing means a lot of the prime planetary formation area isn't available to examine.

  2. Re:Original Image by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why are they misleading? I'm a huge advocate of saying in captions when you've played with the colors (and how you've done so), but doing so is often perfectly good science. Stretching color tables let us see details that would otherwise be too faint for our eyes.