Go Back
  • For Business
  • |
  • Warnings
  • Data Suite
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising
  • Superior Accuracy™
24 dead, dozens of girls at camp missing after catastrophic flooding in Texas. Read the latest Chevron right
Tropical Storm Chantal forms in Atlantic before landfall in South Carolina. Get details Chevron right

Columbus, OH

90°F
Location Chevron down
Location News Videos
Use Current Location
Recent

Columbus

Ohio

90°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Columbus, OH Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

For Business

Warnings

Data Suite

Newsletters

Advertising

Superior Accuracy™

Video

Winter Center

AccuWeather Early Hurricane Center Top Stories Trending Today Astronomy Heat Climate Health Recreation In Memoriam Case Studies Blogs & Webinars
Air Quality Alert

News / Astronomy

Planet-forming disk spotted around star in another galaxy for the first time

Astronomers have glimpsed a young star outside the Milky Way galaxy that’s ringed by a dense disk where planets may form.

By Ashley Strickland, CNN

Published Dec 1, 2023 11:23 AM EDT | Updated Dec 1, 2023 11:24 AM EDT

Copied

An artist's illustration depicts the HH 1177 system, located in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. The massive young star at the center pulls in material from a rotating disk of gas and dust, but it also expels matter in the form of jets. (M. Kornmesser/ESO)

Editor's note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

(CNN) — For the first time, astronomers have glimpsed a young star outside the Milky Way galaxy that’s ringed by a dense disk where planets may form.

The massive star, called HH 1177, and its rotating disk were spotted in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy that’s about 160,000 light-years away. The unprecedented find could help scientists gain a better understanding of star and planet formation.

A newborn star grows in size by pulling in matter from its surroundings. The gas and dust accumulate in a flat disk around the star, known as an accretion disk, as a result of strong gravitational forces. The spinning disk transports the matter onto the star, which gets increasingly larger. The greater the star’s mass, the more powerful its gravitational field becomes, thereby pulling more gas and dust into the disk.

A colossal star such as HH 1177 lives fast and die young, forming more quickly and only having a life span that’s a fraction of that of a star like our sun. This shortened timeline makes the early stages of a massive star hard to observe in our galaxy, as both the star and its disk is hidden from view by the dusty material from which it forms.

But the material from which stars are formed within the Large Magellanic Cloud is different from that of the Milky Way.

HH 1177 is within a stellar nursery, called N180, that has less dust and lower metal abundance. The star isn’t obscured by a cocoon of gas and dust, providing a distant but clear view.

“When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc, it was a special moment,” said lead study author Dr. Anna McLeod, an associate professor of physics at Durham University in the United Kingdom, in a statement. “We know discs are vital to forming stars and planets in our galaxy, and here, for the first time, we’re seeing direct evidence for this in another galaxy.”

Astronomers made the detection of the star, which is estimated to be about 15 times the mass of our sun, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of telescopes in Chile, known as ALMA. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Dynamic activity of a young star

The ALMA observations came as a follow-up to a previous detection made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, or MUSE instrument, on the telescope captured a jet of material releasing from the young star. HH 1177 was found deep within a gas cloud of the galaxy.

“We discovered a jet being launched from this young massive star, and its presence is a signpost for ongoing disc accretion,” McLeod said.

Multiple observatories contributed to the discovery of the extragalactic disk. The star and its jets were first discovered using the Very Large Telescope's MUSE instrument (left and center). Observations from ALMA (right) revealed the rotating disk around the star. (ESO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. McLeod et al.)

To discern whether a disk was present around the star, the team needed to measure how quickly dense gas moved around the star.

When matter is drawn toward a young, evolving star, it doesn’t fall directly onto the celestial object. Rather, the material flattens out and spins around the star and forms a disklike structure. The disk rotates faster at its center. The difference in speed can help astronomers determine if a disk has formed around a star.

“The frequency of light changes depending on how fast the gas emitting the light is moving towards or away from us,” said study coauthor Dr. Jonathan Henshaw, a research fellow at the UK’s Liverpool John Moores University, in a statement “This is precisely the same phenomenon that occurs when the pitch of an ambulance siren changes as it passes you and the frequency of the sound goes from higher to lower.”

The ALMA observations were able to make detailed measurements of the disk’s spin.

Young stars aren’t the only celestial phenomena with accretion disks. Supermassive black holes also have thin, hot disks of matter swirling around them that they feed off of.

“We are in an era of rapid technological advancement when it comes to astronomical facilities,” McLeod said. “Being able to study how stars form at such incredible distances and in a different galaxy is very exciting.”

Related:

Geminids to outshine all other astronomy events in December
Massive exoplanet orbiting small star upends planet formation theories
Astronomers reveal a rare family of six planets

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Report a Typo

Weather News

Weather News

24 dead in Texas, 25 girls from Camp Mystic missing in flooding

Jul. 5, 2025
video

Rescuers save person clinging to an electric pole amid Texas floods

Jul. 4, 2025
Weather News

Record sargassum seaweed piles up on Caribbean islands, Gulf

Jul. 2, 2025
Weather News

Alabama teen in ICU after lightning strike hits boat, causing burns an...

Jul. 2, 2025
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

AccuWeather Early

Hurricane Center

Top Stories

Trending Today

Astronomy

Heat

Climate

Health

Recreation

In Memoriam

Case Studies

Blogs & Webinars

Top Stories

Weather News

24 dead in Texas, 25 girls from Camp Mystic missing in flooding

4 hours ago

Hurricane

Chantal to make landfall in South Carolina Sunday morning

1 hour ago

Severe Weather

Severe weather to rumble in the central US through the holiday weekend

7 hours ago

Severe Weather

Storms kill 3 in New Jersey, knock out power across Northeast

1 day ago

Weather Forecasts

Heat, humidity return to the East

1 hour ago

More Stories

Featured Stories

Weather News

Wildfires are tearing through a popular tourist hotspot in Greece

1 day ago

Weather News

‘Shark Whisperer’ swims its way into our shark obsession

18 hours ago

Travel

Fourth of July gas hasn’t been this cheap since 2021

4 days ago

Weather News

What makes fireworks burst with vibrant colors?

18 hours ago

Health

There is no safe amount of processed meat to eat, new research shows

2 days ago

AccuWeather Astronomy Planet-forming disk spotted around star in another galaxy for the first time
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2025 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | About Your Privacy Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

...

...

...