Astronomers for the first time been able to see the birth of the planets – Russian newspaper

See also

A team of astronomers from the US and Australia for the first time recorded a still evolving planet. As reported in the journal Nature, a space object is growing due to the absorption of gas and dust, it is the star LkCa 15, located 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

Browse the birth of a new planet, the researchers succeeded in using the set in Chile’s Las Campanas Observatory telescope “Magellan”.

– This is the first conclusive discovery of the planet that has not yet finished its formation. The difference in brightness between the star and protoplanet comparable to how the firefly light brighter. Radiation planets are extremely difficult to separate from the glow of the stars, but because we have focused on a specific part of the spectrum, where the planet shines brightly, we were able to see it – leads the RIA Novosti news agency the words of Kate Follette from Stanford University.

Opening closer scientists to validate the hypothesis that the formation of planets begins in the flat gas-dust disk filled with small particles of dust and dense clouds, and ends after a series of clashes planetizimaley – “germ” of planets the size of Vesta or Ceres, and large comets and asteroids.

What happens after the conversion of dust into small lumps the size of a centimeter, astrophysicists still do not know. There are several different theories verify that until recently it was impossible. That is why researchers are currently engaged in an intensive search of newborn planets and their “germ”.

See also

The astronomers noticed that during the formation of the core of the future of the planet and the surrounding gas and dust are heated to very high temperatures, about 10-15 thousand degrees Kelvin . It makes available in the nucleus of hydrogen to glow in the red part of the spectrum of visible light.

Trying to find the “red mark” the presence of extrasolar planets in several well-known protoplanetary disks, Kate Foley and her colleagues and discovered that sun-like star LkCa 15 away 16 astronomical units embryo giant planet LkCa 15b.

The discovery was unexpected because the age of the protoplanetary disk from LkCa 15 is only two million years, which makes planetary scientists to question how “hot Jupiters” and other giant planets may shape so quickly. In addition, according to the high brightness of the “red trail”, the magnetic field LkCa 15b is about 20 times stronger than that of Jupiter today. With the help of existing theories planetologicheskih this phenomenon is almost inexplicable.

See also

In addition to these strange clues, scientists plan to confirm the existence of two other exoplanets in this star system, whose tracks they had recorded during observations of the nascent LkCa 15b.

Found a mistake? Highlight the text with error, and press Ctrl + Enter , to tell us about it.