Over the past two and half centuries, scientists envisioning the origin of planetary systems (including our own) have focused on a specific scene: a spinning disk around a newborn star, sculpting planets out of gas and dust like clay on a potter’s wheel.
But as for testing the idea, by actually spotting an exoplanet coalesce from swirling matter? No luck yet. “Nowadays, everybody says planets form in protoplanetary disks,” said Ruobing Dong, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona.“This sentence is, technically, a theoretical statement.”
Advances over the past few years suggest it won’t stay theoretical for long. Using second-generation instruments mounted on giant ground-based telescopes, several teams have finally resolved the inner regions of a few protoplanetary disks, uncovering unexpected, enigmatic patterns.
The latest views came on April 11, when the European Southern Observatory released eight images of disks around young, sunlike stars, perhaps illustrating what our own solar system looked like in its infancy.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
