Planets and their sun grow together

Some 450 light-years from Earth, embryonic planets may be feeding tendrils of gas to the newborn star they orbit. The discovery helps explain how a young star can grow even as budding planets suck up much of the gas and dust around it. Without the tendrils replenishing it, the star’s supply of gas would disappear in less than a year.

 

Jupiter and Saturn may have done something similar for the sun in its early days, 4.5 billion years ago. “This is one of the nearest examples of the birth of a solar system,” says Simon Casassus, an astronomer at the University of Chile. He and his colleagues describe the finding online January 2 in Nature.

The star in question is named HD 142527, in the southern constellation Lupus. It’s about twice the mass of the sun but far younger, only about 2 million years old. Astronomers knew it was surrounded by a swirling disk of gas and dust, which has a big clearing in it from about 10 times to 140 times the Earth-sun distance. They think a big budding planet — something like Jupiter in its very early days — might orbit its star at about 90 times the Earth-sun distance, clearing out a gap like a snowplow shoveling roads.

Casassus’ team looked at this gap using the ALMA array of radio telescopes in Chile, which can detect faint emissions from gases such as carbon monoxide. The team found some of this gas drifting through the gap — probably leftover stuff that the protoplanet hadn’t cleared away, Casassus says.

More intriguingly, denser gas formed several filaments stretching across the gap. These streamers are almost certainly guided and shaped by protoplanets embedded within them, Casassus says.

The filaments are faint, says University of Hawaii astronomer Jonathan Williams, but “my gut reaction is that their interpretation is probably correct and that this is an exciting result.”

Simulations of how the gas might flow suggest not one but at least two big protoplanets surround the star. One, of around 10 Jupiter masses, probably orbits at the expected 90 times the Earth-sun distance. A second, of around 4 Jupiter masses, may orbit closer in, at around 40 times the Earth-sun distance. “At this point, we can’t tell how many objects orbit the star,” cautions Sally Dodson-Robinson, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin.

Astronomers haven’t yet directly spotted any protoplanets around HD 142527, but they keep looking. The Nature paper relies on one hour’s worth of observations from ALMA; Casassus has six more hours of data that should be arriving on his desk within the next few weeks. “There’s lots more to come,” he says.

Science News Magazine

M.W

 

You might also like
Latest news
Khamenei: Enemies will receive a jaw-breaking response for what they are doing against Iran and Resi... Lebanese resistance launched missile attack on the “Glilot” base and settlements in northern occupie... Pyongyang: The DPRK will further intensify its practical efforts to deter the military threat of the... China evacuated 282,000 people ahead of the Typhoon Kong-rey Zionist enemy committed 10 bloody massacres in south Lebanon yesterday Zionist occupation killed several Palestinian citizens in central Gaza Strip PA issues a statement on the 107th anniversary of the ill-fated Balfour Declaration Al-Mardini discusses with ALECSO’s director and Russian delegation educational cooperation World Health Organization Expresses Concern Over Israeli Attacks on Lebanese Health Facilities On the Second Day of the World Education Meeting... Minister of Education Presents an Intervention o... 9 Settlers Injured as a Result of the Lebanese Resistance Targeting Several Settlements in Northern ... The UN Warns of the Danger of Israeli Raids on Archaeological Sites in Lebanon 3 Martyrs in an Israeli Enemy Raid on The Town of al-Qamatiya in Lebanon 29 Martyrs in a New Massacre by the Israeli Enemy in al-Nuseirat Camp The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Monkeypox Is Out of Control   National Environment Day... raising awareness of the Importance of Dealing Properly with Natural and... Albusaidi: Western Countries Must Put an End to Israeli Aggressions in The Region Lebanon… 11 Martyrs and 14 Wounded by Israeli Aggression Against Baalbek and Several Villages Lavrov Condemns Israeli Entity's Crimes in Assassinating Resistance Leaders in Lebanon and Palestine On The Sidelines of The World Education Meeting in Brazil... The Syrian Delegation Discusses Ways to...