New image reveals secrets of planet birth
Tuesday 1 August 2023
Combined SPHERE and ALMA image of material orbiting V960 Mon - image credit: ESO
25th July 2023. A spectacular new image released
today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how
planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO’s Very Large
Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
(ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young
star, that could collapse to create giant planets. “This
discovery is truly captivating as it marks the very first detection of
clumps around a young star that have the potential to give rise to giant
planets,” says Alice Zurlo, a researcher at the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, involved in the observations. The work is based on a mesmerising picture obtained with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT
that features fascinating detail of the material around the star V960
Mon. This young star is located over 5000 light-years away in the
constellation Monoceros and attracted astronomers’ attention when it
suddenly increased its brightness more than twenty times in 2014. SPHERE
observations taken shortly after the onset of this brightness
‘outburst’ revealed that the material orbiting V960 Mon is assembling
together in a series of intricate spiral arms extending over distances
bigger than the entire Solar System. This finding then motivated astronomers to analyse archive observations of the same system made with ALMA,
in which ESO is a partner. The VLT observations probe the surface of
the dusty material around the star, while ALMA can peer deeper into its
structure. “With ALMA, it became apparent that the spiral arms are
undergoing fragmentation, resulting in the formation of clumps with
masses akin to those of planets,” says Zurlo. Astronomers
believe that giant planets form either by ‘core accretion’, when dust
grains come together, or by ‘gravitational instability’, when large
fragments of the material around a star contract and collapse. While
researchers have previously found evidence for the first of these
scenarios, support for the latter has been scant. “No one had ever seen a real observation of gravitational instability happening at planetary scales — until now,” says Philipp Weber, a researcher at the University of Santiago, Chile, who led the study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Our
group has been searching for signs of how planets form for over ten
years, and we couldn't be more thrilled about this incredible discovery,” says team-member Sebastián Pérez from the University of Santiago, Chile. ESO
instruments will help astronomers unveil more details of this
captivating planetary system in the making, and ESO’s Extremely Large
Telescope (ELT)
will play a key role. Currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama
Desert, the ELT will be able to observe the system in greater detail
than ever before, collecting crucial information about it. “The ELT
will enable the exploration of the chemical complexity surrounding these
clumps, helping us find out more about the composition of the material
from which potential planets are forming,” concludes Weber. More informationThe
team behind this work comprises young researchers from diverse Chilean
universities and institutes, under the Millennium Nucleus on Young
Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS) research centre, funded by the Chilean
National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) and its Millennium
Science Initiative Program. The two facilities used, ALMA and VLT, are
located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. This research is presented in a paper to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ace186). Composition of the team: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2312/?lang
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