Key Laboratory of Interface Science and Engineering in Advanced Materials, Ministry of Education, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030024, China ...

Light gases like helium hung around in the gas-and-dust nebula that formed the solar system for only a few million years. "It's very much debated how long it took the Earth to form," Olson said.

Now, using a powerful NASA supercomputer called "Pleiades," scientists have discovered yet another spiral structure on the edge of our solar system. The spiral is composed of billions of icy ...