First confirmed image of the birth of a planet

NEW YORK – A planets finding instrument captured the first confirmed image of a newborn planet that is still forming in our galaxy.

To the right of the black circle in the center of the image, the round and shiny planet can be seen in the disk of gas and dust around the dwarf star PDS 70. Of course, the center does not show any signs. is not naturally that dark. Instead, the researchers used a coronagraph to block the shining light of the star in order to look at the disk and the planet.

He traces a path through the disc around the star, which is in the constellation Centaurus. The protoplanetary disk is the "factory planet" full of gas and dust around the young stars. The planet was found in a hole in this disc, which means that it is close to where it was born and continues to grow by accumulating disc materials.

The planet, named PDS 70b, was detected by an international team. The Very Large Telescope of the Southern Observatory in Chile and its instrument of research of the planet, called SPHERE. The instrument is considered one of the most powerful planets hunters existing.

The discovery by two research teams is detailed in two articles published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on Monday.

"These discs around the young stars are the birthplaces of the planets, but until now, only a handful of observations have detected clues of baby planets," said Miriam Keppler of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, who led a team . "The problem is that until now, most of these candidate planets could only be features of the disc."

André Müller, also with the Max Planck Institute and leader of the second team, said in a statement that "Keppler's results give us a new window on the complex and poorly understood early stages of the 39, planetary evolution. We needed to observe a planet in the disc of a young star to really understand the processes behind the formation of the planet. "

SPHERE was able to measure the brightness of the planet at different wavelengths.] It's incredibly difficult because even though SPHERE has used the coronagraph to block the star, it had to look for the signal from the planet in multiple ways.

The researchers were able to determine that it's a giant gas planet temperature of 1832 degrees Fahrenheit. few times the mass of Jupiter, the largest gaseous giant in our solar system, and well above the highest temperature recorded on any planet in our solar system.

They also deduced that It has a cloudy atmosphere 19659002] Although the planet is close to its star in the image, it is at 1 864 113 miles, which is the same distance as Uranus from our sun. It takes 120 years for the planet to orbit around the star, which corresponds to the pre astronomers' diction that gaseous giants should form far enough from their stars.

Directly imaging the planet changes the game. In the future, researchers will be able to test models of planet formation and learn more about the history of the formation of early planetary systems, such as our own solar system

. A decade of tremendous effort to build technology machine, now SPHERE allows us to harvest the crop with the discovery of baby planets! "Thomas Henning, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and Astronomy leader of the teams, said in a statement.