Tomoaki Matsumoto

In a cold, dark cloud of gas where a star is just beginning to form, the ALMA telescope has spotted an unusual ring. It is made of gas that is warmer and denser than its surroundings. Such details were previously hidden because the gas at the cloud's center is opaque to ordinary observations.

Two stars orbit a common center, accreting gas from a surrounding cloud. Rotating disks of gas form around each star and around the pair as a whole. From these disks, jets shoot out like hoses. Inside the disks, gas is constantly churned — that's the magnetorotational instability at work.