The Different Orbital Geometries in Protoplanetary Disks around Binary Stars.

12 March, 2020 / Read time: 1 minute

In this animation we can observe two protoplanetary disks of binary stars. On the right is AK Scorpii, which has a circumbinary disk aligned with the orbit of its stars, and on the left is HD 98800B, whose disk is inclined.

By observing many binary systems, scientists found a relationship between short orbital periods and orbit-aligned disks. Likewise, binary systems whose periods are longer than one month tend to have an inclined disk, as is the case with HD 98800B.

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), I. Czekala and G. Kennedy; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello