Alien moon likely seen forming in first-of-its-kind picture
A dusty shroud around a far-off planet may represent the humble beginnings of a brand-new moon.
BY NADIA DRAKE
PUBLISHED JULY 12, 2019
In a possible first, a giant, faraway planet may have been caught in the act of growing moons.
Seen in an image from the ALMA Observatory in Chile, the young planet orbits a small star roughly 370 light-years away, and it appears to be swaddled in a dusty, gassy diskthe exact type of structure scientists think produced Jupiters many moons billions of years ago. (Tour the moons of our solar system with our interactive atlas.)
Its quite possible there might be planet-size moons in formation around it, study leader Andrea Isella of Rice University says in a statement.
Its certainly plausible that giant planets could have giant moon-forming disks around them, says Stanford Universitys Bruce Macintosh of the observation, published this week in
The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Its an intriguing and quite possible result.
More:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/07/alien-moon-likely-seen-forming-first-circumplanetary-disk-alma/