Our Milky Way galaxy is a collection of stars famously arranged in a series of spiral arms wrapped around a black hole center. But galaxies aren't the only spiral structures in the universe; individual stars can have swirling, spiral arms as well. And new research is helping to unravel how — and why — they form.
A new study published July 6 in the journal Nature Astronomy describes how a giant planet might be generating spiral arms in the dusty disk encircling its star. "Our study puts forward a solid piece of evidence that these spiral arms are caused by giant planets," lead study author Kevin Wagner, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, said in a statement.
