3 October 2025
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Latest News
  • [ 24 September 2025 ] Nova outburst in Centaurus News
  • [ 12 September 2025 ] Astronomy Now relaunches digital platform News
  • [ 8 September 2025 ] Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1e displays tentative evidence for an atmosphere News
  • [ 18 August 2025 ] Ten-Year Lease Extension Confirmed at Herstmonceux Observatory News
  • [ 10 August 2025 ] Venus and Jupiter’s bright morning conjunction News
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TW Hydrae

News

Hubble captures ‘shadow play’ caused by possible planet

10 January 2017 Stephen Clark

Searching for planets around other stars is a tricky business. They’re so small and faint that it’s hard to spot them. But a possible planet in a nearby stellar system may be betraying its presence in a unique way: by a shadow that is sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding a young star.

News

Detection of methanol shows comets are forming in distant solar system

16 June 2016 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found the organic molecule methyl alcohol, or methanol, in the protoplanetary disc of TW Hydrae, 175 light-years from Earth — the first such detection of this chemical compound in a young planet-forming disc. Since methanol forms on the icy coatings of dust grains, this discovery provides a window into the region where comets are likely forming.

News

A planet is forming in an Earth-like orbit around a young star

2 April 2016 Astronomy Now

Discs of dust and gas that surround young stars are the formation sites of planets. New images from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) reveal never-before-seen details in the planet-forming disc around a nearby Sun-like star, including a tantalising gap at the same distance from the star as the Earth is from the Sun.

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News Headlines

  • Nova outburst in Centaurus
    24 September 2025
  • Astronomy Now relaunches digital platform
    12 September 2025
  • Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1e displays tentative evidence for an atmosphere
    8 September 2025
  • Ten-Year Lease Extension Confirmed at Herstmonceux Observatory
    18 August 2025
  • Graphic showing the close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus with other stars and contellations marked on a dark sky, above a horizon with trees in silhouette.
    Venus and Jupiter’s bright morning conjunction
    10 August 2025
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