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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

Scientists 'dust for fingerprints' around a young star as it births exoplanets

ALMA observations of the protoplanetary disk around HD 142527. The white bars show the directions of the magnetic field revealed by the orientation of the dust grains. .

How do you dust a star for fingerprints? It's certainly a strange question, but a team of researchers think they have the answer. Their findings could help us better understand how planets are born.

Acting as cosmic forensic scientists, the astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) located in the desert of northern Chile to investigate the planet-forming disk of gas and dust around an infant star.

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