The Birth of Planets

 

 

IT IS being hailed as a major breakthrough, a world-first and proof of a long-held theory.

Scientists in Australia and the US have captured the first-ever images of an exoplanet forming around a young star called LkCa 15, which is located roughly 450 light-years from Earth, writes Christian Science Monitor.

 They've observed the birth of as many as three exoplanets around the star LkCa 15, the team said in its findings, which were recently published in the journal Nature. The new planets are some 450 light-years from Earth, according to Space.com. These observations could give scientists more insight into the processes that form planets.

The telltale signs,, were the accumulation of dust and gas particles on the said star known as LkCa 15.

The images of the LkCa 15 system show a young 2 million year old star surrounded by a large disk of space dust. Circumstellar disks such as this are a common feature around newborn stars, providing the raw material that eventually leads to the formation of a planet.

This new planet is located 450 light years away from Earth.

"Such an understanding of the young planet population will shed light on the decades-old problem of planet formation, and reveal how young planetary systems can evolve into older ones such as our solar system, billions of years after they were born," Zhaohuan Zhu of Princeton University, who is not affiliated with the study.

The findings, which was led by University of Arizona graduates Steph Sallum and Kate Follette, were only possible because of very specialised equipment.

These included the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT– the world’s largest telescope, located on Arizona’s Mount Graham, and the University of Arizona’s Magellan Telescope and its Adaptive Optics System, MagAO, located in Chile.

Such an understanding of the young planet population will shed light on the decades-old problem of planet formation, and reveal how young planetary systems can evolve into older ones such as our solar system, billions of years after they were born," Zhu wrote.