Institute of Astronomy

News and Press Releases

Icy ring around young planetary system has similar chemical fingerprint to our solar system

Published on 17/05/2017 

Icy ring around young planetary system has similar chemical fingerprint to our solar system

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, has made the most detailed image of the ring of dusty debris surrounding a young star and found that the ice content of colliding comets within it is similar to comets in our own solar system.

Using novel gas observations to probe exocomet composition

Published on 04/05/2017 

Astronomers have determined a way to tell the chemical composition of exocomets in a large number of nearby planetary systems for the first time, using the comparison of a new gas model to recent ALMA data.

Ripples in Cosmic Web Measured Using Rare Double Quasars

Published on 27/04/2017 

Astronomers have made the first measurements of small-scale fluctuations in the cosmic web just 2 billion years after the Big Bang. These measurements were enabled by a novel technique using pairs of quasars to probe the cosmic web along adjacent, closely separated lines of sight.

The spiralling signatures of planet formation

Published on 24/04/2017 

A young star recently observed to be surrounded by spiralling gas and dust could be one of the first to show planet formation ‘in action’ via a mechanism once thought to be unlikely.

Astrophysicists at the University of Cambridge, led by Dr Farzana Meru and Dr Attila Juhász, have used theoretical models to determine the origins of the striking large-scale spiral features surrounding a nearby star.

Stars Born in Winds from Supermassive Black Holes

Published on 24/03/2017 

Observations using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have revealed stars forming within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies. These are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution.