Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2026

19 MAY-JUNE 2026 A erial drone footage showing Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF NOIRLab, and the distant Vera C. Rubin Observatory located at Cerro Pachón, Chile. [NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Matsopoulos] https://noirlab.edu/public/videos/pachon_drone_10/ ured the internal gas motions of a disk orbiting a secondary object such as a planet or low-mass star. The observations show a dynamic environment with winds of gaseous metals, including iron and calcium. “The sensitivity of GHOST allowed us to not only detect the gas in this cloud, but to actually measure how it is moving,” says Zakamska. “That’s something we’ve never been able to do before in a system like this.” “This study illustrates the consider- able power of Gemini’s newest facil- ity instrument, GHOST,” notes Chris Davis, NSF Program Director for NOIRLab, “and further highlights one of Gemini’s great strengths — rapidly responding to transient events like this occultation.” The precise measurements of the speed and direction of the wind show that the cloud is moving sepa- rate from its host star. This, com- bined with how long the occul- tation lasted, further confirm that the occulter is a disk around a sec- ondary object and that it orbits in the outer reaches of its host star’s stellar system. The source shows in- frared excess, typically associated with disks around young stars. How- ever, J0705+0612 is more than two billion years old, meaning the disk is unlikely to be leftover debris from the system’s early planet formation stage. So how did it form? Zakam- ska proposes that it originated after two planets collided with each other in the outer reaches of this star’s planetary system, ejecting dust, rocks, and debris and forming the massive cloud now seen passing in front of the star. The discovery highlights how new technology enables new insights into the Universe. GHOST has o- pened a new window into studying hidden phenomena in distant star systems, and the findings provide valuable clues about the long-term evolution of planetary systems and how disks can form around old stars. “This event shows us that even in mature planetary systems, dra- matic, large-scale collisions can still occur,” says Zakamska. “It’s a vivid reminder that the Universe is far from static — it’s an ongoing story of creation, destruction, and trans- formation.” that reveals the chemical elements present in the intervening material. “When I started observing the occul- tation with spectroscopy, I was hop- ing to unveil something about the chemical composition of the cloud, as no such measurements had been done before. But the result ex- ceeded all my expectations,” says Zakamska. The GHOST data revealed multiple metals — elements heavier than he- lium — within the cloud. More re- markably, the high precision of the spectra allowed the team to directly measure how the gas is moving in three dimensions. This marks the first time astronomers have meas- !