Topic description and stories

Millimetre continuum images for the REASONS resolved sample of 74 exocomet belts

Scientists reveal structure of 74 exocomet belts orbiting nearby stars

17 Jan 2025

An international team of astrophysicists has imaged a large number of exocomet belts around nearby stars, and the tiny pebbles within them.

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Artist's impression of a meteor hitting Earth

‘Bouncing’ comets could deliver building blocks for life to exoplanets

15 Nov 2023

How did the molecular building blocks for life end up on Earth? One long-standing theory is that they could have been delivered by comets. Now...

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Artist's impression of No Lup system

Fast-moving gas flowing away from young star’s asteroid belt may be caused by icy comet vaporisation

30 Nov 2020

A unique stage of planetary system evolution has been imaged by astronomers, showing fast-moving carbon monoxide gas flowing away from a star system...

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Icy ring around young planetary system has similar chemical fingerprint to our solar system

18 May 2017

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge, has made the most detailed image of the ring of dusty...

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Illustration of the dust ring surrounding HD 181327

First evidence of icy comets orbiting a sun-like star

19 May 2016

Astronomers have found the first evidence of comets around a star similar to the sun, providing an opportunity to study what our solar system was...

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At the outer fringes of the system, the gravitational influence of a hypothetical giant planet (bottom left) captures comets into a dense, massive swarm (right) where frequent collisions occur.

Galactic gas caused by colliding comets suggests mystery ‘shepherd’ exoplanet

06 Mar 2014

Latest research has uncovered a massive clump of carbon monoxide in a young solar system. ̽»¨Ö±²¥gas is the result of near constant collisions of icy...

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An image of the star Gilese 581 (bottom of image), with an illustration of the debris disc superimposed to show its position.

Low-mass planets make good neighbours for debris discs

27 Nov 2012

Astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory have detected massive debris discs around two nearby stars hosting low-mass planets. ̽»¨Ö±²¥discovery...

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