Astronomers publish the first image of the "newborn" planet – Business Times

How is a planet at the moment of "birth"? An international team of astronomers has used the telescope structure of the Observatory of Southern Europe (ESO) to produce one of the best images ever made of a new planet. at the beginning of life. In the picture, the new star navigates on the disk of gas and dust created by the star to which it will gravitate.

The new planet was baptized PDS 70b – and the non-glamorous name was given according to the star on which it will orbit, the PDS 70. This, in turn, is a dwarf young star: this means that it generates energy by melting the protons present in the nucleus of the hydrogen atoms. Our Sun is also considered a dwarf star.

The image of the planet was captured by an ESO telescope called Sphere, whose specialty is to take pictures of exoplanets – that is to say, planets outside our solar system. The Sphere Telescope is part of the VLT structure, which is today the largest optical telescope ensemble in the world. The VLT operates at Cerro Parbad, in the Atacama Desert (Chile).

The new planet, PDS 70b, is about 3 billion km from its star – a distance equivalent to that between Uranus and our Sun. By badyzing the brightness emanating from the planet at several different wavelengths, scientists have also been able to conclude that PDS 70b is a giant gas type – and is sometimes larger than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. The surface temperature of the PDS 70b is about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than any planet in the orbit of our Sun.

"These discs around the young stars are the nursery of the new planets, but until now little observations have been made." Researcher Miriam Keppler, who led the team responsible for the discovery of the planet in formation in the orbit of the star PDS 70, has detected evidence of the presence of new planets "

" Up to here, however, most "The planet" already observed could be mere noises on the disc, "she said in a bulletin published by ESO

The PDS-70 is the pale orange dot in the middle of the picture. brilliant in the corner is the Chi Centauri

The search around the new exoplanet is presented in two scientific articles (here and here, in English), to be published

The dark spot in the center of the image is due to the use of a coronagraph – a kind of mask that blocks the direct light from the star.

Map showing the location of the star PDS 70 and the new planet in the constellation Centaurus (Photo: ESO, IAU AND SKY AND TELESCOPE / REPRODUCTION) 19659003] "The results of the team led by Keppler open a window on the complex and still poorly understood process of planet formation, and on the early stages of this formation," says astronomer André Müller, responsible for a second team

Knowing the atmosphere and the physical properties of the new planet, scientists will be able to test theoretical models that explain the formation of new worlds https: //s2.glbimg. com / j1zGQE4qRKg2C6VqWqi3jZXpBSs = / e.glbimg.com / og / ed / f / orig