Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2016

12 MAY-JUNE 2016 SPACE CHRONICLES years away from us, in the con- stellation Taurus (the Bull). TMC- 1A is a protostar, a star still in the process of forming. Large amounts of gas still surround TMC-1A. Stars form in dense gas clouds. Baby stars grow by taking in the surrounding gas, like a fetus receiv- ing nutrition from the mother’s placenta. In this process, gas can- not flow directly into the star. Instead it first accumulates and forms a disk around the star, and then the disk feeds into the star. However, it is still unknown when in the process of star formation this ALMA spots baby star’s growing blanket by ALMA Observatory A team led by Yusuke Aso (a graduate student at the University of Tokyo) and Nagayoshi Ohashi (a professor at the Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Ja- pan) observed the baby star named TMC-1A located 450 light