Protoplanetary Disk: Simulated Spiral Arm vs. Observational Data

[ Right] – Observations taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope show a protoplanetary disk around the young star MWC 758. The disk has two spiral arms that extend over 10 billion miles from the star.

[Left] – A computer model reproduces the two-spiral-arm structure; the "x" is the location of a putative planet. The planet, which cannot be seen directly, probably excites the two spiral arms.

About the data

The science team comprises R. Dong (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and Z. Zhu, R. Rafikov, and J. Stone (Princeton University).

The VLT image of MWC 758 is credited to NASA, ESA, ESO, M. Benisty et al. (University of Grenoble), R. Dong (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and Z. Zhu (Princeton University).