Latest news with #planetarysystem
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb Spots Planets Forming Into Solar System in Real Time, Like an Organism's First Cells
Astronomers have spotted a planetary system being conceived from the swirl of gas and dust surrounding a star — giving us an unprecedented, real-time look at how our solar system would've formed some 4.6 billion years ago. The findings, published as a study in the journal Nature, are the first time we're seeing such an early stage of planets being formed anywhere in the cosmos. "We've captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars," lead author Melissa McClure at the Leiden Observatory told the Associated Press. "For the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation are happening right now." Inchoate planetary systems have been spotted before — but they were further along in their development. Instead, what's been captured here, using the James Webb Telescope and the ALMA telescope in Chile, is roughly the equivalent of an organism's first cells being formed. The baby star, or protostar, orchestrating the system's birth is HOPS-315, a G-type star like our Sun — though much younger — located some 1,370 light years away in the constellation Orion. HOPS-315 is surrounded by a hot, rotating circumstellar envelope of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disk. There, the astronomers spotted reservoirs of matter condensing together to form solid mineral grains. Over millions of years, the mineral grains will cool off and coalesce to form larger planetesimals, which serve as building blocks of a nascent planet — either going straight to being a rocky planet like Earth, or the solid core of a giant planet like Jupiter or Uranus. Crucially, the building materials the astronomers detected were silicon monoxide gas and crystalline silicate minerals, which are believed to have played a major role in our own system's birth. "This process has never been seen before in a protoplanetary disk — or anywhere outside our solar system," co-author Edwin Bergin, a professor at the University of Michigan, said in a statement about the work. Per the AP, the solid formation is taking place in a location equivalent to the asteroid belt in our own star system between Mars and Jupiter, where the leftover materials of our system's planet forming years can still be found. Asteroids are ancient planetesimals that never got a chance to make it big, still harboring stores of silicon monoxide and crystalline silicate that astronomers have dated to estimate the timeline of the solar system's formation. The silicon monoxode and crystalline silicate were first spotted by the James Webb, indicating the presence of a protoplanetary disk. But the data wasn't clear enough to determine the exact location they were originating around the star. Fortuitously, Nature noted, the disk was oriented in a way that allowed astronomers to see it unobstructed by HOPS-315's outflow, a highly energetic jet of material that fell onto the star before being blasted into space. Outflows tend to overpower the infrared spectrum that astronomers favor to inspect dense regions like a protoplanetary disk. Thanks to the disk's orientation, though, the ALMA telescope was able to pinpoint the mineral signal's origins to a location about 2.2 astronomical units away from the star, or about 2.2 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. "We're really seeing these minerals at the same location in this extrasolar system as where we see them in asteroids in the Solar System," co-author Logan Francis, a researcher at Leiden University, said in the statement. Many aspects of our solar system's origins remain a mystery, and astronomers can't confidently say how unique its formation is. Can we use it as a blueprint for how planetary systems form throughout the cosmos, or are we a relative oddity? HOPS-315 suggests we have at least a handful of peers. To know for sure, we'll have to check back on how it's doing in a few million years — or more realistically, the James Webb and ALMA telescope will spot more burgeoning systems for us to pry into. More on astronomy: James Webb Space Telescope Spots Stellar Death Shrouds Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Here's how a star beyond Earth's sun could offer a 'picture of the baby solar system'
In an incredible breakthrough, a team of international astronomers have for the first time ever witnessed the birth of a planetary system beyond Earth's sun that could one day resemble our own. The newborn planetary system appears to be emerging 1,300 light-years away around a baby star known as HOPS-315 that resembles a young version of the Earth's own sun. Using data from ground and space telescopes, the researchers were able to pinpoint the moment when the first specks of planet-forming material began to coalesce around the protostar. The finding marks a major milestone in the study of planetary formation and opens a window into the past of our own solar system, the researchers say in a press release from the European Space Observatory. "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our sun,' lead researcher Melissa McClure, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a statement. How do planets form? Our solar system holds clues Stars form when an accumulation of gas and dust collapses because of gravity. Scientists think that generally what follows is the formation of planets, which emerge from the giant, doughnut-shaped disk of gas and dust that circles young stars, known as protoplanetary discs. In our solar system, the first solid material to condense near Earth around the sun is found trapped within ancient meteorites – or rocks from space that survive their trip through Earth's atmosphere. Astronomers can determine the age of these space rocks to calculate when the clock started on the solar system's formation. Because meteorites are packed with crystalline minerals that contain silicon monoxide, they can condense at the extremely high temperatures present in young planetary discs. Over time, these condensed solids bind together in a process that kickstarts planet formation as they gain both size and mass. Jupiter's gravity, often called the "architect" of our solar system, played a critical role in shaping the orbits of other planets and sculpting the disk of gas and dust from which they formed. Webb telescope helps spot planetary formation around HOPS-315 Now, evidence of these hot minerals were found just beginning to solidify in the disc around HOPS-315. The minerals were first identified using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. To trace the origin of the signals, the team turned to the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), an array of 66 radio telescopes located in the desert of northern Chile. The data from the observatories suggested that the chemical signals were coming from a small region of the disc around the star equivalent to the orbit of the asteroid belt around the Earth's sun, according to the researchers. Findings serve as 'picture of the baby solar system' It's not uncommon for astronomers to see protoplanetary discs containing infant Jupiter-like planets around baby stars like HOPS-315. But scientists have always known that the first solid parts of planets, known as planetesimals, must form much earlier. Merel van 't Hoff, an astronomer at Purdue University who co-authored the research, compares the findings to "a picture of the baby solar system." "We're seeing a system that looks like what our solar system looked like when it was just beginning to form,' van 't Hoff said in a statement. For that reason, the discovery could help astronomers glean more insights into our own cosmic history. It also provides astronomers with new information to study early planet formation that could serve as a model for newborn solar systems across the galaxy. The research was published July 16 in the journal Nature. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New solar system similar to Earth's seen by astronomers Solve the daily Crossword
Arab News
16-07-2025
- Science
- Arab News
Astronomers capture the birth of planets around a baby sun outside our solar system
It's an unprecedented snapshot of 'time zero,' scientists reported WednesdayIn a stunning picture taken by the ESO's Alma telescope network, the emerging planetary system resembles a lightning bug glowing against the black voidFLORIDA: Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming in the gas around a baby sun-like star, providing a precious peek into the dawn of our own solar an unprecedented snapshot of 'time zero,' scientists reported Wednesday, when new worlds begin to gel.'We've captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars,' said Leiden Observatory's Melissa McClure from the Netherlands, who led the international research team. 'For the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation are happening right now.'The observations offer a unique glimpse into the inner workings of an emerging planetary system, said the University of Chicago's Fred Ciesla, who was not involved in the study appearing in the journal Nature.'This is one of the things we've been waiting for. Astronomers have been thinking about how planetary systems form for a long period of time,' Ciesla said. 'There's a rich opportunity here.'NASA's Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory in Chile teamed up to unveil these early nuggets of planetary formation around the young star known as HOPS-315. It's a yellow dwarf in the making like the sun, yet much younger at 100,000 to 200,000 years old and some 1,370 light-years away. A single light-year is 6 trillion a cosmic first, McClure and her team stared deep into the gas disk around the baby star and detected solid specks condensing — signs of early planet formation. A gap in the outer part of the disk gave allowed them to gaze inside, thanks to the way the star tilts toward detected silicon monoxide gas as well as crystalline silicate minerals, the ingredients for what's believed to be the first solid materials to form in our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. The action is unfolding in a location comparable to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter containing the leftover building blocks of our solar system's condensing of hot minerals was never detected before around other young stars, 'so we didn't know if it was a universal feature of planet formation or a weird feature of our solar system,' McClure said in an email. 'Our study shows that it could be a common process during the earliest stage of planet formation.'While other research has looked at younger gas disks and, more commonly, mature disks with potential planet wannabes, there's been no specific evidence for the start of planet formation until now, McClure a stunning picture taken by the ESO's Alma telescope network, the emerging planetary system resembles a lightning bug glowing against the black impossible to know how many planets might form around HOPS-315. With a gas disk as massive as the sun's might have been, it could also wind up with eight planets a million or more years from now, according to University's Merel van 't Hoff, a co-author, is eager to find more budding planetary systems. By casting a wider net, astronomers can look for similarities and determine which processes might be crucial to forming Earth-like worlds.'Are there Earth-like planets out there or are we like so special that we might not expect it to occur very often?'
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Science
- Reuters
Webb telescope spots infant planets in different stages of development
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - The James Webb Space Telescope has observed two large planets at different stages of infancy - one with an atmosphere brimming with dusty clouds and the other encircled by a disk of material - orbiting a young sun-like star in a discovery that illustrates the complex nature of how planetary systems develop. The two gas giant planets, both more massive than our solar system's largest planet Jupiter, were directly imaged by Webb in a planetary system located in the Milky Way galaxy about 310 light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Musca. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). Astronomers have detected more than 5,900 planets beyond our solar system - called exoplanets - since the 1990s, with less than 2% of these directly imaged like these two. It is rare to find exoplanets in their early developmental stages. The birth of a planetary system begins with a large cloud of gas and dust - called a molecular cloud - that collapses under its own gravity to form a central star. Leftover material spinning around the star in what is called a protoplanetary disk forms planets. This planetary system was observed by Webb very early in its developmental history. The star, named YSES-1, is about the same mass as the sun. The two planets orbit a long distance from the star, each probably needing thousands of years to complete a single orbit. While the sun is roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is approximately 16 million years old, a veritable newborn. The researchers were surprised to find that the two neonatal planets observed by Webb appeared to be at different stages of development. The innermost of the two has a mass about 14 times greater than Jupiter and orbits the star at a distance 160 times greater than Earth orbits the sun and more than five times as far as our solar system's outermost planet Neptune. The planet is surrounded by a disk of small-grained dust, a state one might expect in a very early stage of formation when it is still coalescing, or perhaps if there has been a collision of some kind or a moon is in the process of taking shape. Webb spotted water and carbon monoxide in its atmosphere. The outermost planet has a mass about six times greater than that of Jupiter and orbits the star at 320 times the distance of Earth to the sun. Its atmosphere is loaded with silicate clouds, differing from our solar system's gas giants. Webb also detected methane, water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It has no disk of material around it. The puzzling combination of traits presented by these two planets in the same system illustrates "the complex landscape that is planet formation and shows how much we truly don't know about how planetary systems came to be, including our own," said astrophysicist Kielan Hoch of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who led the study published this week in the journal Nature, opens new tab. "Theoretically, the planets should be forming around the same time, as planet formation happens fairly quickly, within about one million years," Hoch said. A real mystery is the location where the planets formed, Hoch added, noting that their orbital distance from the host star is greater than would be expected if they formed in the protoplanetary disk. "Furthermore, why one planet still retains material around it and one has distinct silicate clouds remains a big question. Do we expect all giant planets to form the same way and look the same if they formed in the same environment? These are questions we have been investigating for ages to place the formation of our own solar system into context," Hoch said. In addition to amassing a trove of discoveries about the early universe since becoming operational in 2022, Webb has made a major contribution to the study of exoplanets with its observations at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. "Webb is revealing all sorts of atmospheric physics and chemistry happening in exoplanets that we didn't know before, and is currently challenging every atmospheric model we used pre-Webb," Hoch said.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Astronomers left puzzled by high-altitude clouds forming on young planet
Should humans ever venture to a particular planet that circles a sun-like star in the constellation of the fly, they would do well to keep an eye on the weather. The thick slabs of cloud that blot the planet's skies are mostly made from mineral dust, but astronomers suspect there may be iron in them, too, which would rain down on the world below when the clouds break. Astronomers spotted the high-altitude clouds when they trained the James Webb space telescope (JWST) on the young star system, which lies 307 light years away in the deep southern sky. The star, YSES-1, is a newbie by cosmic standards, a mere 1m years old compared with the 4.6bn-year-old sun. The star is circled by two gas giants, both still forming and both larger than Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system. Dr Kielan Hoch, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, said the planetary system's youth made it a prime target for astronomers to learn more about the early evolution of planets around faraway stars. 'There's a small handful of multiplanet systems that have been directly imaged,' Hoch said. 'And they are a unique laboratory to test planet formation theories as they formed in the same environment.' 'Both planets are still forming, which is why they are still bright enough for us to detect,' she added. 'The light we are seeing is from their formation as they begin to shrink and condense.' When the team began their observations they were surprised to find both planets in the telescope's field of view, giving them information on two worlds for the price of one. The outer planet, YSES-1c, is the smaller of the two worlds, and about six times the mass of Jupiter. The telescope revealed high-altitude clouds in the planet's atmosphere, but instead of being made from water vapour as on Earth, the clouds consist of magnesium silicate dust grains and perhaps some iron. 'The iron would indeed precipitate out,' Hoch said. The astronomers described the observations as the first direct detection of such clouds on a planet circling a sun-like star. Further data revealed a disc of material made up of trillions of tonnes of dust particles around the larger inner world, YSES-1b, about 14 times the mass of Jupiter. The findings were published in Nature. Hoch said the disc around the inner planet was a 'puzzle for formation theories' since both planets must have formed in the same environment. 'Why did YSES-1b hold on to material around it while YSES-1c did not?' she said. An added mystery is why a 16m-year-old planet still has a disk of material swirling around it. Astronomers' theories of planet formation suggest that any encircling dust should have settled after the first 5m years. 'We wouldn't expect the planets to look so different from one another if they formed in the same protoplanetary disk,' Hoch said. 'JWST is providing an immense amount of data to continue to refine models and improve our understanding.' The $10bn telescope has transformed astronomy since it launched in December 2021 from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The flagship mission has peered back to the first galaxies that lit up the cosmos, spied strange new worlds, and witnessed black holes colliding. It has even spotted tantalising, if controversial, hints of life beyond Earth.
