Planet-making disks of gas, dust, and ice are known to form around stars and brown dwarfs. But now, disks with the potential to form planets, or at least moons, have been found outside the solar system orbiting objects that themselves are no heftier than planets.
PLANET POTENTIAL. A new study suggests that some objects only a few times as heavy as Jupiter might be surrounded by a planet- or moon-making disk, such as the one seen in this artist’s depiction.
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