UChile: Shadows Cast by a Warp in a Planet Forming System

[bystander]

Shadows Cast by a Warp in a Planet Forming System
Millennium ALMA Disk Nucleus (MAD) | Universidad de Chile | 2015 Jan 07

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Astronomers from MAD at Universidad de Chile present a viable scenario for the three dimensional geometry of a planet forming system. The finding is based on the discovery of shadows cast by a warped inner disk which bears strong implications for the dynamics of planet formation.

A piece in the puzzle of how planets form has been unlocked thanks to new insight on planet forming systems. Planets are thought to form in disks of gas and dust that surround new born stars. Assuming that these protoplanetary disks lie in a single plane, all proto-planets tend to be contained in that plane too, much like the planets in our Solar System revolve in coplanar orbits. Interestingly, astronomers at the University of Chile have recognized the existence of shadows in a planet forming system, which require at least two tilted disks.

Right next to our Solar neighbourhood lies HD142527, a young star surrounded by a large disk rich in gas and dust. This is one of the best studied protoplanetary systems because of its large size, its proximity to us and the variety of ‘planet formation sign posts’ that hint to the presence of newborn planets. As giant planets grow they carve wide trails in the disk along its orbit, leaving rings with less gas and dust that astronomers call gaps. HD142527 exhibits the largest such gap known so far – one could fit three times Neptune’s orbit inside. This gap divides the disk in two distinctive zones: an outer disk (which contains most of the mass) and an inner disk. By comparing different three-dimensional models of the disk with empirical data, astronomers at the Millennium ALMA Disk Nucleus, a.k.a MAD, identified and constrained the geometry of the system. ...

Shadows cast by a warp in the HD 142527 protoplanetary disk - Sebastian Marino, Sebastian Perez, Simon Casassus

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 798(2) L44 (2015 Jan 10) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/798/2/L44
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1412.4632 > 15 Dec 2014 (v1), 16 Dec 2014 (v2)