Born in beauty: Proplyds in the Orion Nebula
Monday, December 14, 2009 - 13:28
in Astronomy & Space
A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation.