A team of astronomers captures the first image of a young planet

The image of the new planet / ESO A. Müller and others

A team of astronomers , led by a group of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, captured the first image of a young planet, called PDS 70b, formed around the disk of gas and dust of a star.

RESEARCH

The discovery, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was made possible by the long-range telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which managed to capture the planet by dividing a path through the material that surrounds the star, and from which these stars usually form. 19659006] Detection was possible thanks to the Sphere instrument installed in the VLT, one of the most powerful planetary search instruments of the moment, which is used to study this type of celestial bodies by means of A technique called Ima

This method, with the aid of a chronograph – a mask that blocks the blinding light of the central star and allows to detect planetary objects around – a facilitated the capture and measurement of the brightness of the planet, which

The badysis also shows that the PDS 70b is a giant planet formed of gas with a mbad a few times larger than that of Jupiter and a temperature of surface of the order of 1000º C, much hotter than any other planet in the solar system.

"After more than a decade of tremendous effort to build this high-tech machine, Sphere now allows us to capture what is planted with the discovery of baby planets," says Thomas. Henning, director of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy and team leader.