Image of protostar suggests planets form earlier
Image of protostar suggests planets form earlier
By Rachel Smith
Correspondent
January 4, 2015
November, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescope in Chile released an astonishing image.
This is an image of a protoplanetary disk – the ring of gas and dust that astronomers think surrounds most forming stars (also called protostars). This is amazing for a few reasons. It is the first image to show the detailed concentric rings indicative of planet formation in a protoplanetary disk. This visualization of real-time planet formation looks startlingly like artistic renderings of protoplanetary disks often used in interpreting fuzzy astronomical images.
More interesting, perhaps, is that the protostar HL Taurus (often referred to as HL Tau) is less than 1 million years old – too young, scientists thought, to have a forming system of planets. That there are orbiting bodies well on their way to planethood implies that planets can form far earlier than originally thought. This earlier history for planet formation means that initial thinking on the chemistry and physics that drive planet formation will need to be reconsidered.
HL Tau is a sun-like protostar about 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. But being in the pre-star phase of its evolution and surrounded by a large disk of gas and dust renders it only visible at infrared wavelengths. Being similar in mass and type to our sun, it is one of the best analogues for the early solar system, and astronomers study the chemistry of the gas and dust surrounding this and other protostars like it to better understand how our own planetary system evolved.
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