Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released this update on researchers’ use of high performance computing resources to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, which are planets beyond our own solar system. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb ….
Video: How an Exoplanet Makes Waves
In this video, a new NASA supercomputer simulation depicts the planet and debris disk around the nearby star Beta Pictoris reveals that the planet’s motion drives spiral waves throughout the disk, a phenomenon that greatly increases collisions among the orbiting debris. Patterns in the collisions and the resulting dust appear to account for many observed features that previous research has been unable to fully explain.