New Images Reveal Secrets of Planet Formation
Spectacular new images released today by the European Southern Observatory provide clues about how giant planets like Jupiter form. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Interferometer (ALMA), researchers have discovered a large clump of dust near a young star that could collapse to form a giant planet.
Alice Zullo, a researcher at the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile who was involved in the observations, said, “This discovery is truly fascinating because it represents the first detection of a dust clump around a young star that could produce a giant planet.
The study describing the discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The study is based on fascinating images obtained with the Spectropolarimetric High Contrast Exoplanet Explorer (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT that feature fascinating details of the material around the star V960 Mon. This young star, located more than 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros, caught astronomers’ attention in 2014 when it suddenly brightened by a factor of more than 20 The SPHERE observations were made shortly after this brightening “outburst” and show that the material orbiting V960 Mon is a large distance away, larger than the entire solar system over a period of time, and revealed that it was assembled in a series of complex spiral arms.
The discovery prompted astronomers to analyze archival observations of the same star system made by ESO’s partner ALMA; the VLT observations probe the surface of the dusty material around the star, while ALMA provides a deeper look into its structure. Says Zurlo, “ALMA has revealed that the spiral arms have fragmented, resulting in the formation of massive clumps that resemble planets.”
Astronomers believe that giant planets form either by “core accretion,” where dust grains collect, or by “gravitational instability,” where large fragments of material around a star contract and collapse. Researchers have previously found evidence for the former of these scenarios, but little evidence for the latter.
No one has actually observed gravitational instability occurring on a planetary scale before,” says researcher Philip Weber of the University of Santiago in Chile, who led the study. Our group has been exploring how planets form for more than a decade.”
ESO’s instruments will help astronomers uncover the details of this fascinating planetary system, and ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will play an important role. Currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the ELT will be able to observe planetary systems in greater detail than ever before and collect important information about them.
The ELT will help us understand the composition of the material from which planets may form.
Source:New Images Reveal Secrets of Planet Formation
Connecting a star’s chemical composition and planet formation