Astronomy is advancing to the point where we can see planets forming around young stars. This was an unthinkable only a few years ago. It was only two years ago that astronomers captured the first image of a newly-forming planet.
Using Earth's most powerful array of radio telescopes, astronomers have made the first observations of a circumplanetary disk of gas and dust like the one that is believed to have birthed the moons of Jupiter.
A planetary scientist has used careful mathematical calculations to determine the density of Mercury's crust, which is thinner than anyone thought.
For the first time, astronomers have directly observed a planet in the making.
