ALMA Detects Hallmark “Wiggle” of Gravitational Instability in Planet-Forming Disk

Interferometry of stunning spiral arms around young star reveals gravity’s hand in planet formation.

Traditionally, planet formation has been described as a “bottom-up” process, as dust grains gradually collect into bigger conglomerations over tens of millions of years, from microns to centimeters to meters to kilometers. Alternatively, another theory proposes that planets can form rapidly by a “top-down” process, where circumstellar disk material in spiral arms fragments due to gravitational instability.

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The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) -the largest astronomical project in existence- is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed of 66 high precision antennas located in northern Chile. ALMA is an international partnership of ESO (Europe), NSF (U.S) and NINS (Japan) together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile We love the Cosmos!