2 Newborn Planets May Be Forming Around a Distant Young Star

Located roughly 400 light-years from Earth, the young star, known as HD 163296, is approximately 5 million years old and about twice the mass of our sun. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, astronomers examined the distribution of both the dust and the carbon monoxide gas components of the protoplanetary disk surrounding HD 163296. The gas and dust of the protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star named HD 163296, in which two new planets are forming.