ALMA is not designed to exclusively target planetary formation, but coincidentally an extrasolar planet was found during the construction of ALMA and it deepened discussions
on planetary systems in astronomical communities.
In August, Marsden became chairman of the Small Bodies Task Group of the Working
Group on Planetary System Nomenclature of the IAU, which is responsible for dreaming up names for newly discovered astronomical objects of all sorts.
Two recent studies show that the formation of planets may leave detectable chemical signatures in their host stars, a finding that could help scientists zero in
on planetary systems even more quickly and speed the search for worlds similar to Earth.
Kane and his team, including former undergraduate student Miranda Waters, examined the habitable
zone on a planetary system 14 light years away.
Though admittedly a long shot, this method is more easily achievable than other approaches that have been advanced in recent years, such as looking for city lights, which would demand optics well outside our current capabilities (you'd need a mirror 100 times larger than Hubble's just to detect
lights on the planetary system closest to our own).