Astronomers observe newborn planets evolving from gas and dust particles

Astronomers have observed for first time a planet taking shape out of microscopic dust particles 450 light years from Earth The primordial process that turns enormous clouds of cosmic dust into newborn planets over millions of years has been observed directly for the first time. An worldwide team of astronomers are now watching the birthing process of this “protoplanet” happen, which they elaborate on in a new Nature paper published Wednesday.

The distant star and the disk of dust and gas that surround it, dubbed LkCa 15, are only about 2 million years old, the team estimates, and each of the protoplanets is less than 10 times the mass of Jupiter. Stephanie Sallum, a University of Arizona astronomy graduate student, said “This young system provides the first opportunity to study planet formation and disk-planet interactions directly”. Planets are created in these discs and gather the dust and debris from them, unlike the material in the disc or “falling into the host star”.

Scientists scanning the galaxy have spotted big planets and small ones, rocky planets and gassy planets, freezing planets and hellishly hot ones.

The planet in its formation stages is located in “a gap in the transition disc”, or planetary “nursery, of the star LkCa15”, the University of Arizona reported. The other two (LkCa 15c and d) are not as strong, and they are visible mostly in different wavelengths. Simply looking at the the odds, “it’s unlikely that you’ll come across a planet when it’s still forming”, she says. The detection of asymmetries and heat signatures within these disks has been attributed as evidence that planets are forming within these gaps. Besides, their data suggests that two other baby planets are lurking nearby, and we’ll bet they’d love to see those, as well.

“It’s fantastic to see these cutting-edge instruments now enabling us to make such exciting discoveries”, Professor Tuthill said.

“The Magellan Telescope’s Adaptive Optics System corroborated the finding, and successfully captured the planet’s “‘hydrogen alpha’ spectral fingerprint, the specific wavelength of light that LkCa 15 and its planet emit as they grow”, according to the Univ. of Sydney.

Now, a new series of observations adds key details of the planet-in-the-making, showing for the first time how it is feeding on hydrogen gas.

Of the many new exoplanets discovered over the past two decades, all have been identified as established, older planets.

As many as three planets are in the process of formation around the star, with the researchers tracking their planetary motion between 2009 and 2015, using advanced tools including the world’s largest telescope, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, and the Magellan Telescope in Chile.

“We can go and look at this and do more detailed studies now, to try to understand how planets are built”.