The protoplanetary disc around MP Mus (PDS 66) (IMAGE)

University of Cambridge

The protoplanetary disc around MP Mus (PDS 66)

Caption

When astronomers first observed it with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), they saw a smooth, planet-free disc, shown here in the right image. The team, led by Álvaro Ribas, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, UK, gave this star another chance and re-observed it with ALMA at longer wavelengths that probe even deeper into the protoplanetary disc than before. These new observations, shown in the left image, revealed a gap and a ring that had been obscured in previous observations, suggesting that MP Mus might have company after all.

Credit

ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Ribas et al.

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