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Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found the clearest evidence yet that giant planets have recently formed around four young stars. These new worlds, each presumably several times more massive than Jupiter, were inferred by the telltale structures they produced in the disks of gas and dust that surround the stars.
The new ALMA images confirm that the dust-free zones of these disks are not empty, but instead contain significant amounts of gas. These gas-filled regions, the researchers discovered, also contain cavities that are up to three times smaller than the gaps observed in the dust. Such structures are best explained by the scenario in which newly formed massive planets have cleared the gas as they traveled around their orbits.Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
