Hubble Follows Shadow Play Around Planet-Forming Disk
The young star TW Hydrae is playing “shadow puppets” with scientists observing it with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope
In 2017, astronomers reported discovering a shadow sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding the red dwarf star. The shadow isn’t from a planet, but from an inner disk slightly inclined relative to the much larger outer disk ? causing it to cast a shadow. One explanation is that an unseen planet’s gravity is pulling dust and gas into the planet’s inclined orbit.
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