On Tuesday, the European Southern Observatory released a new image that could advance our fundamental understanding of how brand new planets are formed.
Located over 5000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros, a star named V960 Mon was photographed using the Very Large Telescope's Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument. The image was taken after the onset of a brightness outburst revealing that there's material orbiting it, in what appeared to be a series of intricate spirals extending massive distances.
