An American Astronomical Society Meeting Release
A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting
, the premier astronomy conference.
Hubble observed a "blizzard" of particles in a disk around a young star
revealing the process by which planets grow from tiny dust grains. The
particles are as fluffy as snowflakes and are roughly ten times larger than
typical interstellar dust grains. They were detected in a disk encircling
the 12-million-year-old star AU Microscopii.