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At over 370 light-years away from us, around a rather young star, a new planet emerges: a group of researchers managed to photograph it. The image is one of the most accurate testimonies of the formation of a planet external to our solar system (ie an exoplanet) collected up to now: it was carried out thanks to the collaboration between the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the Very Large Telescope in Chile Southern Observatory (ESO). Although similar observations and attempts have been made in the past, researchers say the new photograph is the "first confirmed image of a newborn planet". His study will allow us to discover new things about the formation of planets and the processes that led to the formation of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
In the image of the ESO (below) the planet is visible as a very bright circle, lower than the obscured center of the image where the star is located . The area is dark due to the presence of the "coronagraph", a solution that is applied during observation through the telescope to block the huge amount of light produced by the star: in its absence it would be impossible to observe what surrounds it and a much lower brightness. PDS 70 – the dwarf star around which the planet is formed – is very young in astronomical terms: it counts about 5.4 million years
(ESO / A. Müller et al.) [19659004] The planet is It is called PDS 70b and is about 3 billion kilometers from its star, a distance comparable to that between the Sun and the planet Uranus. The data tells us that it is a giant gas planet, with a mbad equal to a few times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. PDS 70b is however much hotter than any other planet orbiting the Sun: the researchers estimate that its surface temperature is about 1000 ° C.
PDS 70b is located at the # 39, inside a "protoplanetario disk", that is to say, that much of the space around a star where the powders and the advanced gases s'. accumulate during the formation process of the star itself. The material thickens and aggregates to lead to the formation of a planet. The formation process of PDS 70b is still ongoing and the planet is making space on the protoplanetary disk
In the past, other researchers had already broadcast images of planets presumed at their beginnings. training, but confirming such discoveries is always complicated. The direct observation of celestial bodies so far away is complicated, requires the collection of large amounts of data and their correct processing. The results obtained with the PDS 70b seem more solid and reliable, explain the researchers who studied the planet and its star for a long time to eliminate the errors and the anomalies. The PDS 70 and its planet will become special observatories in the coming years, with the aim of discovering something more about the formation of planets and solar systems
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