Third planet in formation confirmed

5 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Astronomers from Monash University have published new near-infrared images of the HD 169142 system, which confirm the formation of a protoplanet in the system. It is the third registered.

The research team used data from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory in Chile from a star more than 350 light-years away surrounded by a protoplanetary disk.

“We expect the planets to be hot during their formation, and the telescope observed HD 169142 in the near infrared to look for signatures of planet formation around the star,” he said. it’s a statement lead study author and PhD candidate Iain Hammond from Monash University’s School of Physics and Astronomy.

Images captured with the SPHERE instrument on the VLT reveal a compact source moving over four years (2015-2019). “We successfully detected a protoplanet at about 37 au (slightly further than the orbit of Neptune) from the star in all four observations, and orbits its host star at the expected velocity defined by Kepler’s third law.”

“This represents a confirmation of previous observations published by Gratton et al. (2019) that claimed a tentative detection of a protoplanet.” The new study confirms this hypothesis both through a new analysis of the data used in their work and the inclusion of new observations of better quality.

THIRD WORLD IN TRAINING CONFIRMED

Only two other exoplanets have been imaged during formation: PDS 70 b and c, which orbit the star PDS 70. This latest discovery of HD 169142 b brings that number to three.

The researchers also found that the planet had carved a space in the disk (the ring-shaped structure) as it pulled in material from the disk itself.

“In the near infrared we can see an excited spiral arm in the disk by the planet, strongly suggesting that other protoplanetary disks containing similar spirals could host planets not yet discovered”Ian said.

The spectrum suggests that a large amount of dust surrounds the planet, reflecting starlight. This is to be expected if the planet is buried in a significant amount of dust that has accumulated from the disk.

“This planet is also an exciting target for the recently deployed James Webb Space Telescope.” JWST’s high sensitivity will allow researchers to detect the hot dust that surrounds the planet. The material is expected to take the form of a circumplanetary disk (a disk around the planet itself) that could form small satellites like moons. This new detection has shown that it is possible to directly image these forming planets even when they are still completely buried in dust.

The new study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).