Astronomers have detected signs of a large disk of dust and gas orbiting a distant star. There is nothing unusual in this. This is a normal stage in the development of a star and planetary system. What makes this finding so impressive is that it’s the first time we’ve seen it around a star in a galaxy other than our own.

This feature was detected in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy approximately 179,000 light-years away from the Milky Way. Although it seems common sense to assume that star formation processes are universal, we have never before observed their variability outside our own galaxy.

“When I first saw evidence of rotating structure in the ALMA data, I couldn’t believe we had discovered the first extragalactic accretion disk, it was a special moment,” says astronomer Anna McLeod of Durham University in the UK.

“We know that disks are vital to the formation of stars and planets in our galaxy, and here for the first time we see direct evidence of this in another galaxy.”

Stars are born from dense clusters in molecular clouds of gas and dust suspended in interstellar space. When the lump becomes dense enough, it collapses under the influence of gravity; As it rotates, it begins to pull more material from the cloud around it. But this material doesn’t just fall on the protostar; It forms a disk around the star’s equator and falls on it in a more controlled, steady flow, like water flowing down a drain.

After the formation of the star is complete, what remains of the disk remains there and comes together to form all the other elements of the planetary system: planets, asteroids and meteors, comets, dust. This is why the planets in the solar system revolve around the sun in a more or less flat plane. We are like intelligent mold growing on the remains of a sunny breakfast.