ALMA: Planet Formation in Earth-like Orbit around a Young Star
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 2:56 pm
Planet Formation in Earth-like Orbit around a Young Star
ESO | NAOJ | NRAO | ALMA | 2016 Mar 31
A Planet Is Forming in an Earth-like Orbit around a Young Star
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | 2016 Mar 31
Ringed Substructure and a Gap at 1 AU in the Nearest Protoplanetary Disk - Sean M. Andrews et al
viewtopic.php?t=29149
ESO | NAOJ | NRAO | ALMA | 2016 Mar 31
ALMA's Best Image of a Protoplanetary Disk
- ALMA image of the planet-forming disk around the young, Sun-like star TW Hydrae. The inset image (upper right) zooms in on the gap nearest to the star, which is at the same distance as the Earth is from the Sun, suggesting an infant version of our home planet could be emerging from the dust and gas. The additional concentric light and dark features represent other planet-forming regions farther out in the disk. Credit: S. Andrews (CfA), ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
The disks of dust and gas that surround young stars are the formation sites of planets. New images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) reveal never-before-seen details in the planet-forming disk around a nearby Sun-like star, including a tantalizing gap at the same distance from the star as the Earth is from the Sun.
This structure may mean that an infant version of our home planet, or possibly a more massive "super-Earth," is beginning to form there.
The star, TW Hydrae, is a popular target of study for astronomers because of its proximity to Earth (approximately 175 light-years away) and its status as a veritable newborn (about 10 million years old). It also has a face-on orientation as seen from Earth. This affords astronomers a rare, undistorted view of the complete disk.
"Previous studies with optical and radio telescopes confirm that this star hosts a prominent disk with features that strongly suggest planets are beginning to coalesce," said Sean Andrews with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and lead author on a paper published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "The new ALMA images show the disk in unprecedented detail, revealing a series of concentric dusty bright rings and dark gaps, including intriguing features that suggest a planet with an Earth-like orbit is forming there."
Other pronounced gap features are located 3 billion and 6 billion kilometers from the central star, similar to the distances from the Sun to Uranus and Pluto in our own Solar System. They too are likely the result of particles that came together to form planets, which then swept their orbits clear of dust and gas and shepherded the remaining material into well-defined bands. ...
A Planet Is Forming in an Earth-like Orbit around a Young Star
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | 2016 Mar 31
Ringed Substructure and a Gap at 1 AU in the Nearest Protoplanetary Disk - Sean M. Andrews et al
- Astrophysical Journal Letters 820(2):L40 (2016 Apr 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8205/820/2/L40 (pdf)
viewtopic.php?t=29149