The oldest disk-shaped galaxy ever spotted formed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, a new study finds. That’s much earlier than astronomers thought that this type of galaxy could form.

The potential planet-in-the-making was detected around the star HD 135344B, within a disk of gas and dust around it called a protoplanetary disk. The budding planet is estimated to be twice the ...

About a third of protoplanetary disks around young stars have spiral arms, and we now think we know why. In galaxies, spiral arms are caused by density waves within the galactic disk.

The discovery of this spiral disc is not just about observing a distant star system; it represents a key step in understanding the dynamic interactions that give rise to planets. By observing the ...

MADISON — As the shapes of galaxies go, the spiral disk — with its characteristic pinwheel profile — is by far the most pedestrian. Our own Milky Way, astronomers believe, is a spiral. Our ...

Astronomers believe the spiral disk in this photograph may be evidence of a planet forming around the young star HD 135344B. The location of this potential planet is indicated with a white circle.

This dense region would eventually grow into a spiral. The researchers think such a process could have been set off around this 9-million-year-old star by planets lodged in its disk.

But that galaxy has its own mysteries. The new detailed radio images show “that the gas in the galaxy’s “outskirts,” high above its spiral disk of stars, is not a smooth, halo-like ...