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They had their wish. Here is the yellow-orange blob on the picture at the top of this story. This is a baby planet
The picture was taken by an instrument on the Very Large Telescope, a telescope named very accurately by the European Southern Observatory in the Chilean Desert. The instrument is able to remove light from the star, which reveals its environment. In the picture, the star appears as a black sphere
The star, known as PDS 70, resides 370 light-years from Earth. Astronomers had suspected that it could harbor a growing planet because they observed a gap in its protoplanetary disk – the cloud of star dust left since its birth. Such gaps usually indicate the presence of an object large enough to absorb close material with its gravity.
The research, conducted by astronomers from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Germany, was published Monday in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics
With the light of the Blocked star, the faint radiant light of the planet, named PDS 70b, appeared. When astronomers studied this light, they found that PDS 70b is a gaseous planet many times the mass of Jupiter. Despite what the family portrait suggests above, the planet is turning away from its star and takes about 120 years to complete a trip. With a surface temperature of 1200 Kelvin, it's an inflamed world. And it's probably still growing, say the researchers.
By observing the young inhabitants of other star systems, astronomers can glimpse the ancient history that is ours. Although PDS 70b and Jupiter are unfathomable distances, they have similar stories. Their places of birth have determined their destiny.
Young stars have the habit of gobbling up nearby gas. If PDS 70b and Jupiter were formed near their respective stars, they would have come out of what was left when the stars ate gas: rock. They would have shot like Mars or the Earth. But the planets formed further away, where the gas was sheltered from the sun. Jupiter became a giant marble of swirling clouds; PDS 70b, the researchers say, is also shrouded in clouds.
The image of PDS 70b is, for the moment, one of the best views we have of a young planet beset by training. But you can witness the basic mechanics of this cosmic birth for yourself, and you do not have to go to the International Space Station with a bag of salt to do it. Just look under your couch and look for tufts of dust. Like the planets, these dusty bunnies came from small particles that swirled around the world of your home.
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