Astronomers have, for the first time, captured a detailed snapshot of planetary systems in an era long shrouded in mystery.
The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS), using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has produced the sharpest images ever of 24 debris disks, the dusty belts left after planets finish forming.
These disks represent the cosmic equivalent of the teenage years for planetary systems; they are somewhat more mature than newborn, planet-forming disks, but have not yet settled into adulthood.
A missing link in planetary family albums
“We’ve often seen the ‘baby pictures’ of planets forming, but until now, the ‘teenage years’ have been a missing link,” says Meredith Hughes, an Associate Professor of Astronomy at Wesleyan University and co-PI of the study, which is published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Our own Solar System’s counterpart to this phase is the Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune that preserves a record of massive collisions and planetary migrations from billions of years ago.
By studying 24 exoplanetary debris belts, the ARKS team has opened a window into what our Solar System went through as the Moon was forming and as planets jostled for their final places, sometimes even trading orbits.
Teenage disks: hard to “photograph,” impossible to ignore
Debris disks are faint, hundreds or even thousands of times dimmer than the bright, gas-rich disks where planets are born. The ARKS team overcame these challenges and produced images of these disks in unprecedented detail.
Like teenagers dodging the camera, these faint disks have managed to hide from astronomers for years. But, thanks to ALMA, astronomers can now see their complex structures: belts with multiple rings, wide smooth halos, sharp edges, and even unexpected arcs and clumps.
“We’re seeing real diversity—not just simple rings, but multi-ringed belts, halos, and strong asymmetries, revealing a dynamic and violent chapter in planetary histories,” adds Sebastián Marino, program lead for ARKS, and an Associate Professor at the University of Exeter.
This ARKS gallery of faint debris disks reveals details about their shape: belts with multiple rings, wide smooth halos, sharp edges, and unexpected arcs and clumps, which hint at the presence of planets shaping these disks; and chemical make-up: the amber colours highlight the location and abundance of the dust in the 24 disks surveyed, while the blue their carbon monoxide gas location and abundance in the six gas-rich disks. Image credit: Sebastian Marino, Sorcha Mac Manamon, and the ARKS collaboration.
Highlights and firsts from ARKS
- A new benchmark: ARKS is the largest, highest-resolution survey of debris disks, akin to a ‘DSHARP-for-debris-disks’, setting a new gold standard.
- A dynamic, violent youth: About one-third of observed disks show clear substructures (multiple rings or distinct gaps) suggesting legacy features left from earlier, planet-building stages or sculpted by planets over much longer timescales.
- Unexpected diversity: While some disks inherit intricate structures from their earlier years, others mellow out and spread into broad belts, similar to how we expect the Solar System to have developed.
- Clues to planetary ‘stirring’: Many disks show evidence for zones of calm and chaos, with vertically “puffed-up” regions, akin to our Solar System’s own mix of serene classical Kuiper Belt objects and those scattered by Neptune’s long-ago migration.
- Surprising gas survivors: Several disks retain gas much longer than expected. In some systems, lingering gas may shape the chemistry of growing planets, or even push dust into wide halos.
- Asymmetries and arcs: Many disks are lopsided, with bright arcs or eccentric shapes, hinting at gravitational shoves from unseen planets, leftover birth scars from planetary migration, or interactions between the gas and dust.
- Public data release: All ARKS observations and processed data are being made freely available to astronomers worldwide, enabling further discoveries.
Implications: our Solar System was once a wild ride
The ARKS results show this teenage phase is a time of transition and turmoil.
“These disks record a period when planetary orbits were being scrambled and huge impacts, like the one that forged Earth’s Moon, were shaping young solar systems,” says Luca Matrà, a co-PI on the survey, and Associate Professor in Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics.
By looking at dozens of disks around stars of different ages and types, ARKS helped decode whether chaotic features are inherited, sculpted by planets, or arise from other cosmic forces. Answering these questions could reveal whether our Solar System’s history was unique, or the norm.
And there is much still to learn.
“We've observed large amounts of gas in these systems that could be released by the comets in the discs. The gas could impact the evolution of the planetary systems and the atmospheres of hidden, unseen planets,” said Sorcha Mac Manamon, PhD Candidate in Trinity’s School of Physics.
Looking ahead: hunting for planetary architects
The ARKS survey’s findings are a treasure trove for astronomers hunting for young planets and seeking to understand how planet families, like our own, are built and rearranged.
“This project gives us a new lens for interpreting the craters on the Moon, the dynamics of the Kuiper Belt, and the growth of planets big and small. It’s like adding the missing pages to the Solar System’s family album,” adds Hughes.
The ARKS survey is the work of an international team of approximately 60 scientists, led by the University of Exeter, Trinity College Dublin, and Wesleyan University. For more information, visit https://arkslp.org/.
This information was adapted from a press release shared by the US National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
