University of Warwick, UK | 2018 Oct 17
New research by a team led by an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick has a way of finally telling whether newly forming planets are migrating within the disk of dust and gas that typically surrounds stars or whether they are simply staying put in the same orbit around the star.
Finding real evidence that a planet is migrating (usually inwards) within such disks would help solve a number of problems that have emerged as astronomers are able to see more and more detail within protoplanetary disks. In particular, it might provide a simple explanation for a range of strange patterns and disturbances that astronomers are beginning to identify within these disks.
Planet migration is a process that astronomers have known the theory about for 40 years but it's only now that they have been able to find a way of observationally testing if it really occurs. ...
Is the Ring Inside or Outside the Planet?
The Effect of Planet Migration on Dust Rings ~ Farzana Meru et al
- Monthly Notices of the RAS (online 24 Oct 2018) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2847
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1810.06573 > 15 Oct 2018