MPE/CfA: Stars and Planets May Be Siblings

[bystander]

Stars and Planets Grow Up Together as Siblings
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) | 2020 Oct 07

ALMA shows rings around the still-growing proto-star IRS 63

The rings and gaps in the IRS 63 dust disk compared to a sketch of orbits in our own Solar System at the same scale and orientation of the IRS 63 disk. The locations of the rings are similar to the locations of objects in our Solar System, with the inner ring about the size of the Neptune orbit and the outer ring a little larger than the Pluto orbit. Credit: MPE/D. Segura-Cox; Data: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

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Astronomers have found compelling evidence that planets start to form while infant stars are still growing. The high-resolution image obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows a young proto-stellar disk with multiple gaps and rings of dust. This new result ... shows the youngest and most detailed example of dust rings acting as cosmic cradles, where the seeds of planets form and take hold.

An international team of scientists ... targeted the proto-star IRS 63 with the ALMA radio observatory. This system is 470 light years from Earth and located deep within the dense L1709 interstellar cloud in the Ophiuchus constellation. Proto-stars as young as IRS 63 are still swaddled in a large and massive blanket of gas and dust called an envelope, and the proto-star and disk feed from this reservoir of material.

In systems older than 1,000,000 years, after the proto-stars have finished gathering most of their mass, rings of dust have been previously detected in great numbers. IRS 63 is different: at under 500,000 years old, it is less than half the age of other young stars with dust rings and the proto-star will still grow significantly in mass. ...

“The size of the disk is very similar to our own Solar System,” Segura-Cox explains. “Even the mass of the proto-star is just a little less than our Sun's. Studying such young planet-forming disks around proto-stars can give us important insights into our own origins.”

Growing up Stardust: Scientists Discover That Stars and Planets May Be Siblings
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) | 2020 Oct 07

Early onset of planet formation observed in a nascent star system
Nature | News & Views | 2020 Oct 07

Four Annular Structures in a Protostellar Disk Less Than 500,000 Years Old ~ D. M. Segura-Cox et al

• Nature 586(7828):228 (08 Oct 2020) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2779-6
• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:2010.03657 > 07 Oct 2020