New observations of 86 planet-forming disks provide astronomers with a wealth of data and unique insight into how planets form in different regions of the Milky Way.
A planet-forming disk around a young star and its location in the gas-rich clouds of the constellation Taurus, about 600 light-years from Earth. Scientists observed a total of 43 stars in the Taurus region, all of which are pictured here (although planet-forming disks were detected in only 39 of these targets) ).Image credit: ESO / Galfi other. /Iras.
More than 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered to date, many of them in planetary systems significantly different from our solar system.
To understand where and how this diversity occurs, astronomers need to look at the dust- and gas-rich disks that envelop young stars: the cradles of planet formation. These are most commonly found in the giant gas clouds in which the stars themselves are forming.
As with mature planetary systems, new images from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) show the amazing diversity of planet-forming disks.
“Some of these disks show huge spiral arms, probably driven by a complex ballet of orbiting planets,” said Christian Ginski, an astronomer at the University of Galway.
“Some show rings or large cavities formed by planet formation, while others appear smooth and almost dormant amidst this hustle and bustle of activity,” said Antonio Galfi, an astronomer at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory. he added.
The authors studied a total of 86 stars across three different star-forming regions in the Milky Way. Taurus and Chameleon I are both about 600 light-years from Earth, and Orion is a gas-rich cloud about 1,600 light-years from us. It is known as the birthplace of several stars more massive than the Sun.
In the Orion cloud, we found that stars in groups of two or more are less likely to have large disks that form planets.
This is an important result given that, unlike our Sun, most stars in our galaxy have companion stars.
In addition to this, the uneven appearance of the disk in this region suggests that there may be a giant planet embedded within it, which could cause the disk to become distorted or misaligned. there is.
Planet-forming disks can extend to distances hundreds of times the distance between Earth and the Sun, but because of their location hundreds of light-years from us, they appear like tiny needles in the night sky. I can see it.
To observe the protoplanetary disk, astronomers used the VLT's Spectropolarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research Equipment (SPHERE).
Additional data was obtained using VLT's X-SHOOTER instrument, allowing researchers to determine how young the star is and how massive it is.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) has helped us understand more about the amount of dust around some stars.
Per Gunnar Vallegord, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam, said: “The process that marks the beginning of the journey towards the formation of planets and, ultimately, the formation of life in our solar system could not be more beautiful. It's almost poetic that it is.”
The results of this study will be published in three papers. journal astronomy and astrophysics.
Source: www.sci.news
