Researchers detect first 'moon-forming' disc surrounding exoplanet - FRANCE 24

For the first time, scientists have clearly identified a ring of gas and dust circling a planet outside our solar system -- a discovery that could help reveal how planets and moons are formed, a study showed Thursday.

Those observations combined with high-resolution images from the ALMA telescope, also in Chile, allowed them to conclude that PDS 70c's disk holds material that will allow moons to form around the planet, said the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers have known since 2006 that the star PDS 70 is surrounded by a very large ring of material but limitations on the observational equipment only allowed them to guess at the presence of a planet between the star and the ring.

"More than 4,000 exoplanets" -- planets outside our solar system -- "have been found until now, but all of them were detected in mature systems," she said in the press release.