Astronomers using the ALMA telescope reported in 2021 the first detection of carbon monoxide (CO) gas
in the terrestrial planet region surrounding a young star. Planet formation models predict that in
the last stage of planetary assembly, terrestrial planets grow their mass through collisions of
planetary embryos, and that these giant impacts should produce observable debris. The ALMA (Atacama
Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array) observations of CO strongly suggest the presence of these
planet-building collisions, as the gas is an expected by product. The astronomers believe that CO in
this system is evidence of a recent planetary collision on the scale of the collision between Earth
and another protoplanet that led to the formation of the Moon.