Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2026

22 ASTRO PUBLISHING The streamer extends approxi- mately 12,000 astronomical units— about 0.2 light-years, or roughly one trillion miles—from the disk. By tracing its motion in carbon monoxide, the team found that the incoming gas meets the disk at its outermost dust ring and car- ries angular momentum closely aligned with that ring, while re- maining strongly misaligned with the innermost ring. NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 Trillion-mile stream feeding the triple-star system GW Orionis by ALMA Observatory Nicolás Lira Jill Malusky Bárbara Ferreira U sing the Atacama Large Mil- limeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have mapped a vast streamer of gas feeding GW Orionis, a young triple-star system surrounded by three misaligned rings of planet- forming material. The observations provide the clearest evidence yet that late infall from a system’s natal cloud can help tilt and re- shape a protoplanetary disk. A rtist’s impression of a gas streamer feeding material onto the protoplanetary disk around GW Orionis and contributing to its misaligned dust rings. [NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/B. Saxton]