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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

Astronomers discover baby planets taking their 1st steps in nearby stellar nursery (images)

Alma
(Main) images of protoplanetary disks in the Ophiuchus star-forming region. (Inset) an illustration of a planet birthing disk around a young star.

Astronomers may have caught the first stages of planets being born around infant stars.

The discovery came about when a team of scientists studied 78 planet-forming, flattened clouds of gas and dust, or "protoplanetary disks," in the Ophiuchus star-forming region. This stellar nursery, also known as the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, is located around 460 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star-forming region to our solar system.

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