ALMA | NAOJ | NRAO | ESO | 2016 Dec 05
[img3="Dust disk around the young star HD 142527 observed with ALMA.Researchers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have for the first time, achieved a precise size measurement of small dust particles around a young star through radio-wave polarization. ALMA’s high sensitivity for detecting polarized radio waves made possible this important step in tracing the formation of planets around young stars.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Kataoka et al. "]http://www.almaobservatory.org/images/n ... LMAobs.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Astronomers have believed that planets are formed from gas and dust particles, although the details of the process have been veiled. One of the major enigmas is how dust particles as small as 1 micrometer aggregate to form a rocky planet with a diameter of 10 thousand kilometers. Difficulty in measuring the size of dust particles has prevented astronomers from tracing the process of dust growth.
Akimasa Kataoka, a Humboldt Research Fellow stationed at Heidelberg University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), tackled this problem. He and his collaborators have theoretically predicted that, around a young star, radio waves scattered by the dust particles should carry unique polarization features. He also noticed that the intensity of polarized emissions allows us to estimate the size of dust particles far better than other methods. ...
Submillimeter Polarization Observation of the Protoplanetary Disk around HD 142527 - Akimasa Kataoka et al
- strophysical Journal Letters 831(2):L12 (2016 Nov 10) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8205/831/2/L12
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.06318 > 20 Oct 2016 (v1), 28 Oct 2016 (v2)
