These Stunning Images Shows What Appears To Be A Planet Being Born
European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) seems to have caught images of a phenomenon which might be the birth of a planet in a star system. Gas and dust can be seen spiraling around the AB Aurigae star system. Located 520 light-years away from our Earth, a storm was noticed by scientists. And in the middle of this swirl is a “twist”.
This “twist” is what the scientists think to be a new planet being born. In a statement, ESO claims these images and the research to be the first direct evidence of the birth of a planet. The study was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and Observatoire de Paris’ Anthony Boccaletti is the lead author. Boccaletti says that although we know about the existence of thousands of exoplanets near us, we barely know anything about how they started their journey. According to him, scientists need to observe very young star systems to better understand and even capture the process of the birth of a planet. Co-author of this study, Emmanuel Di Folco said that the circulating ripples of the storm are similar to “the wake of a boat on a lake”.
Images of the AB Aurigae system showing the disc around it. The image on the right, a zoomed-in version of the central part of the image on the left, shows the inner region of the disc. This inner region includes the ‘twist’ (in very bright yellow) that scientists believe marks the spot where a planet is forming. This twist lies at about the same distance from the AB Aurigae star as Neptune from the Sun. The images were obtained with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in polarised light.
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Scientists are confident that the twist at the center of the swirling is the exact spot where the new baby planet is being formed. The distance between AB Aurigae and the new planet is approximately the same as the distance between our Sun and Neptune, which is about 4.5 billion km.
In 2016, another team of scientists took images of spiral gas arms near a star. Such arms are usually associated with galaxies, like our spiral galaxy. But this finding was an indication of the formation of a new planet the scientists believed. Now, the finding of the “twist” in such a situation adds much intrigue to the whole thing.
Another co-author, Anne Dutrey said: “The twist is expected from some theoretical models of planet formation. It corresponds to the connection of two spirals — one winding inwards of the planet’s orbit, the other expanding outwards — which join at the planet location.”
As the dust and gas collect along the swirls, they keep concentrating at the twist, which makes way for a planet to form.
The images of the AB Aurigae system showing the disc around it. The image on the right is a zoomed-in version of the area indicated by a red square on the image on the left. It shows the inner region of the disc, including the very-bright-yellow ‘twist’ (circled in white) that scientists believe marks the spot where a planet is forming. This twist lies at about the same distance from the AB Aurigae star as Neptune from the Sun. The blue circle represents the size of the orbit of Neptune. The images were obtained with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in polarised light.
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More powerful tools and telescopes will allow scientists to take better images of the birth of the planet and understand the process better. Boccaletti hopes to directly see the precise gas dynamics that lead to the formation of planets.
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All images: ESO
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