Observe the seeds of a new planetary system – Digital Journalist

A team of astronomers has detected signs of formation of a new planetary system on observations of the star HD169142. The work, involving the CSIC, has been published in two papers in The Astrophysical Journal.

As explained Experts planets form from disks of gas and dust that revolve around young stars. Once formed the “seed” of the planet-a small accumulation of dust-this adds material produces a groove in the disc with the shape of its orbit.

This transition stage between the original disk and The difficult to study and still little known planetary system is precisely what scientists have observed the star. “Although there have been discovered in recent years more than 1,700 exoplanets, only in rare cases has been obtained direct image and has not yet achieved an image of a planet forming,” he pointed CSIC researcher, Mayra Osorio. As indicated, “in HD169142 could be on seeing the seeds of gas and dust which later become planets.”

is a young star HD169142 with two times more massive than the sun, whose disk extends about 37,500 million miles. According to the researchers, the system presents an excellent orientation for the study of planets forming disk as its front looks.

The first study explores the HD169142 disk with the Very Large Array radio telescope , to detect dust grains several centimeters. The results, combined with infrared data, we plotted the presence of microscopic dust grains show two grooves on the disc, one in the inner region among 0.7 to 20 astronomical units (AU) – and a more external and less developed (between 30 and 70 AU).

 

This structure already suggested that the disc is being modified by two planets or substellar objects, but also the data revealed the existence of a lump of material in the outer groove, which is approximately the distance of the orbit of Neptune, pointing the existence of a planet in formation.

 

COMPANIONS AROUND HD169142

The second study, which also involved the CSIC, focused on track through infrared observations with Very Large Telescope, the existence of some object in the grooves of the record. They found a strong signal in the internal cavity, which could correspond to a forming planet or a brown dwarf.

The data in the infrared did not show, however, the presence of the object in the outer groove observations suggested radio. This could be due to technical limitations and has served to narrow the characteristics of a possible object: researchers estimate that an object between a tenth and 18 times the mass of Jupiter surrounded by a cold envelope might have gone unnoticed in the observed wavelength .

 

In future observations will be able to check if the disk contains one or two objects. In any case, HD169142 is a promising object because it is one of the few records of known transition and we are discovering the environment in which planets form.