Astronomers Capture Detailed Snapshots of Teenage Planetary Systems

ALMA survey provides unprecedented view of exoplanetary debris disks, offering clues about our solar system's early history.

Published on Feb. 3, 2026

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Astronomers have, for the first time, captured detailed images of planetary systems during their "teenage years" using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The ALMA survey, called ARKS, has produced the sharpest views ever of 24 debris disks - the dusty belts left after planets finish forming. These disks are the cosmic equivalent of teenage planetary systems, providing a window into the chaotic period our own solar system went through as the Moon was forming and planets were jostling for their final positions.

Why it matters

The ARKS survey offers a rare glimpse into the formative years of planetary systems, a phase that has long been shrouded in mystery. By imaging these "teenage" debris disks around nearby stars, astronomers can better understand the processes that shaped our own solar system, including massive collisions and planetary migrations that occurred billions of years ago.

The details

The ARKS team has produced 10 related papers about these extrasolar planetary systems, including one led by Caltech postdoctoral scholar Yinuo Han. Han's paper examines the structure of these dusty rings surrounding stars in order to better understand planetary system formation. Many disks show evidence of zones of calm and chaos, with vertically "puffed-up" regions, similar to the mix of serene classical Kuiper Belt objects and those scattered by Neptune's migration in our own solar system.

  • The ARKS survey results were published in January 2026.

The players

Yinuo Han

A Caltech postdoctoral scholar who led a paper on the ARKS survey examining the structure of dusty rings surrounding stars.

ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a powerful telescope that captured the detailed images of the exoplanetary debris disks.

ARKS

The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures, an international collaboration of approximately 60 scientists that produced the findings.

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What they’re saying

“These images are showing us dust and gas from rings of comets orbiting stars, much like alien versions of our own solar system's Kuiper Belt. We've been studying their structure over the past three years, trying to understand how planetary systems formed by looking at these solar system 'cousins' at different ages.”

— Yinuo Han, Caltech postdoctoral scholar (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

“We see a range of structures among these dust belts. Some of them are asymmetric or have gaps, which is interesting because they potentially point to planets that are perturbing the belt with their gravity or carving out those gaps. These techniques are sensitive to a population of planets that have so far been difficult to detect because they are generally too small and have long orbits. The complexity of these disk structures reflect the diversity among exoplanetary systems.”

— Yinuo Han, Caltech postdoctoral scholar (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

What’s next

As the ARKS team continues to interpret the survey's findings, the results will form the foundation for future observations to grow the sample and put theories of planet formation to the test.

The takeaway

The ARKS survey offers an unprecedented view into the formative, chaotic "teenage" years of planetary systems, providing crucial insights into how our own solar system and others like it were assembled billions of years ago.