Planet Forming in AS 209: First Direct Image of Birth

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Introduction: A moment billions of years old Planet forming in AS 209.

Imagine a moment when stars, planets and galaxies were being born. And a time when the universe was like a giant dark and mysterious laboratory, but where clouds of gas and dust were giving birth to new stars and worlds from within. This is not a scene from a science fiction film, but the era of our own universe when our Sun and our Earth came into existence. Humans have always been puzzled by the question of how we are here. How did the Earth and the other planets come to be? For centuries scientists have built theories, run computer simulations and gazed at the sky with telescopes to answer this question. But now we don’t just have a theory or a simulation. Now we have solid proof.

A picture. And recently a team of astronomers from around the world has made history. For the first time, they have directly captured a picture of a planet that is forming right now within a disk of dust and gas revolving around its parent star. This event gives us direct evidence of how the planets of our solar system formed millions of years ago.

Background – How planets are born

To understand the importance of this historical picture, however, we must first know what scientists already thought about the process of planet formation. Also, stellar nurseries, which are gas clouds in space
Our universe is full of giant molecular clouds. These clouds are mainly made up of hydrogen gas, helium and tiny particles of dust. When a part of these clouds starts shrinking due to its own gravity, it starts rotating and flattens to form a protostellar disk. The center of this disk is so hot and dense that eventually a new star is born there. Also, the protoplanetary disk, which is the birthplace of planets and the circular ring of gas and dust left after the formation of a star, which revolves around that newborn star.

Scientists call it the protoplanetary disk. Researchers consider this the birthplace of planets. This disk mainly consists of gas, hydrogen, helium, silicate dust, ice particles, and other minerals. Discovery details – who is the hero and how was it discovered.

The hero star AS 209 and its disk

Researchers have made this historic discovery around a young star AS 209 located about 395 light-years away from us. And this star is located in the constellation Sagittarius. Also AS 209 is a very young star. Whose age is estimated to be just 1.6 million years. And for comparison, the age of our Sun is 4.6 billion years. This star is still in its infancy and a beautiful clear disk of gas and dust is revolving around it. Also, the weapon of discovery is the ALMA radio telescope and the credit for capturing this picture goes to the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array. But ALMA is the world’s most powerful radio telescope located at an altitude of 16,000 feet above sea level in the Atacama Desert of Chile.

This is not a telescope, but a group of 66 separate antennas. Which together works like a giant virtual telescope. ALMA works at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths of radio waves, which makes it expert in seeing the light coming out of cold dust and gas. It can take much deeper and detailed pictures of these disks than optical telescopes like Hubble.

Estimated form of the planet forming in AS 209

It is estimated that this newborn planet is a gas giant. Which is probably as big as our planet Jupiter or a little smaller than that. It is so far from its star that it will take thousands of years to complete one full orbit. Also scientific importance And why is this picture not just a picture? And this picture is not just a beautiful astronomical image. It is an important scientific data that confirms many theories and raises new questions. But this discovery confirming the theory of planet formation is one of the strongest evidence of the core. This shows that the accumulation of material within the disk itself indeed forms planets, which grow and create gaps in the disk. Researchers observe that this theory is no longer just a model running on a computer screen, but is happening in reality in the universe.

Distance is a puzzle: How did the planet get so far away?

This discovery also raises the biggest question. The Sun formed the gas giants of our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn) near its vicinity (5-10 AU). But this planet of AS 209 forms at a distance of about 200 AU from its star. This is an extremely far distance. This creates two possibilities. Also, planet migration is possible; this planet may have formed in the inner part of the disk and then slowly migrated outward while interacting with the disk. An alternative formation mechanism is possible; some other way of planet formation might allow gas giants to form even at such a distance. According to a theory disk instability, sometimes a part of the disk can collapse directly due to its own gravity and form a planet, without the long process of joining small bodies. Perhaps this planet was formed in this way.

Formation of the planet’s atmosphere

ALMA’s images have also indicated that this newborn planet may have a small disk of its own around it. But it is from such a disk that the moons of that planet are formed. Also, scientists have found a special type of gas in the disk – carbon monoxide – COWe have detected a protoplanet which indicates that the process of formation of the atmosphere of this planet has started.

This is a great opportunity to understand the entire ecosystem of a planetary system. Also, this discovery opens a new window as this proves that now our technology has become so advanced that we can directly observe not only the ready planets but also their process of formation. This has opened the way to the discovery of many more such protoplanets in the future. We can study the formation of multiple planetary systems simultaneously and understand whether the formation of our solar system was a normal process or a special case.

Future possibilities – what’s next? of Planet forming in AS 209

This discovery is a beginning. Not the end. Future observations are Planet forming in AS 209 and its newborn planet. Also, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which observes the universe in infrared light, is the perfect instrument to observe this system. It can give more detailed information about the temperature, mass and the environment around this planet.

This can confirm if there is indeed a circumplanetary disc around it that will lead to the formation of moons. Also other observatories that will come online in the future, even more powerful ground-based telescopes (like the Extremely Large Telescope – ELT) that will be able to take even higher resolution images. And a bigger picture. Discoveries like these will help us understand how different types of planetary systems like Hot Jupiters, Super-Earths etc. form. It will also help us guess how many more solar systems like ours might be out there in this galaxy where life might be possible.

Conclusion A glimpse into our origins of Planet forming in AS 209

Astronomer Carl Sagan once said. We are all the stuff of stars. The molecules in our bodies, the elements of our Earth, the energy of our Sun – everything came from the process of stellar explosions and planet formation that happened billions of years ago. But this planet forming in AS 209 is giving us a tour right into the cosmic factory where we ourselves originated. This picture is like a time machine that takes us back 4.5 billion years to the time when our own solar system was a spinning disc of gas and dust and our Earth was a tiny body forming within it.

This discovery is also a living proof of human curiosity and its ability to explore. It reminds us that we are living in an era where we can not only reach distant stars but can also see the process of their formation with our own eyes. This is not just a picture of a planet. It is an important page in the story of our own existence, which we have now turned.