Skip to main content

Watch a Baby Planet Carve Out a Home for Itself

Astronomers have detected a small, compact source embedded in a gap in the disk surrounding a young star. They believe it is a baby planet in the process of growing.

Protoplanetary systems offer rare glimpses into the evolutionary history of solar systems like our own. We know already from extensive observations and theory that solar systems start out as vast clouds of interstellar gas that then compress and begin to rotate. Eventually that rotating gas flattens into a disk and planets begin forming around a central core.

While we have a very good understanding of the general picture, we do not understand the details of how planets form, especially the differences between inner rocky planets and outer giant worlds. So the more direct observations we can make of protoplanetary systems the better our understanding can be.

Unfortunately the process of planet formation plays out over millions of years, so it’s not like we can just stare at one system and watch it evolve before our very eyes.

Or can we?

A team of astronomers have released a series of observations going back almost a decade of the system called HD169142. This system has a very fortunate alignment, as it appears face on from our field of view, so we get a complete view of the entire system. The system itself is a disk in the process of forming planets.

A planet carves out a gap in a protoplanetary disk in the HD 169142 system. (Image credit: Hammond et al.)

Previous observations had already identified a ring-like gap in the disk sitting about 37 AU from the central star. Follow-up observations discovered a small object embedded in that gap. The team performed repeated observations over several years and found that the small, compact object was moving.

The team argues that they are watching a baby planet move around a star. They believe it’s a planet because the motion of the bright source fits with the typical Keplerian motion of a planet around a star. Second, the edges of the gap are very bright, which is expected from theoretical simulations where a planet has carved out a gap in the disk from its gravity.

Lastly, the team has observed spiral-shaped structures in the disk emanating away from the gap. This is also expected from theoretical calculations based on the gravitational influence of the planet on the rest of the disk.

They believe that this protoplanet is roughly the mass of Jupiter and is still in the process of forming. It has already accumulated a lot of gas and cleared that gas out from its ring, and more gas is likely funneling onto the planet from the surrounding disk. We do not yet have the observational capabilities to determine if other planets are forming within the disk, but continued studies of this baby system can shed a light on how planets like our own Jupiter form.

The post Watch a Baby Planet Carve Out a Home for Itself appeared first on Universe Today.



from Universe Today https://ift.tt/ejh5Aba
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Data and Machine Learning has Kicked SETI Into High Gear

For over sixty years, astronomers and astrophysicists have been engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This consists of listening to other star systems for signs of technological activity (or “technosignatures), such as radio transmissions. This first attempt was in 1960, known as Project Ozma, where famed SETI researcher Dr. Frank Drake (father of the Drake Equation) and his colleagues used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to conduct a radio survey of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Since then, the vast majority of SETI surveys have similarly looked for narrowband radio signals since they are very good at propagating through interstellar space. However, the biggest challenge has always been how to filter out radio transmissions on Earth – aka. radio frequency interference (RFI). In a recent study, an international team led by the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (DIAA) applied a new deep-learning algorithm to data collecte...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Close-Up Picture of Star Outside the Milky Way

Like a performer preparing for their big finale, a distant star is shedding its outer layers and preparing to explode as a supernova. Astronomers have been observing the huge star, named WOH G64, since its discovery in the 1970s. It’s one of the largest known stars, and also one of the most luminous and massive red supergiants (RSGs). The star is surrounded by an envelope of expelled star-stuff, which could indicate it’s getting ready to explode. WOH G64 isn’t in the Milky Way; it’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy. Getting these detailed image is quite a feat for the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. It’s also quite an accomplishment for the team of scientists behind the image. They’ve published their images and the results of their observations of the star in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Their research is titled “ Imaging the innermost circumstellar environment of the red supergiant WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Planetary Surfaces: Why study them? Can they help us find life elsewhere?

Universe Today recently explored the importance of studying impact craters and what they can teach us about finding life beyond Earth. Impact craters are considered one of the many surface processes—others include volcanism, weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics—that shape surfaces on numerous planetary bodies, with all of them simultaneously occurring on Earth. Here, we will explore how and why planetary scientists study planetary surfaces, the challenges faced when studying other planetary surfaces, what planetary surfaces can teach us about finding life, and how upcoming students can pursue studying planetary surfaces, as well. So, why is it so important to study planetary surfaces throughout the solar system? “Planetary surfaces record the history of the Solar System, a history that’s almost entirely lost to us here on Earth,” Dr. Paul Byrne, who is an Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, tells  Uni...
Post a Comment
Read more