Astronomers have reportedly captured a rare event of planet formation, a phenomenon never before observed. Planets are believed to originate from the remnants of gas and dust surrounding a newly formed star, leading to the creation of a disk around the star. While scientists have previously detected such protoplanetary disks around various stars, witnessing the actual formation of a planet within one, resulting in spiral-like structures, is a first.
The discovery, detailed in a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, remains unconfirmed as to whether the observed object is a developing planet or protoplanet. The object, located approximately 440 light years away within a binary star system, is estimated to be twice the size of Jupiter and orbits its host star at a distance akin to Neptune’s orbit from the sun.
Describing the find, lead author Francesco Maio analogized the planet within the disk to a spoon in a cappuccino, stirring spirals as it moves. While spiral structures have been observed previously, this marks the initial instance of potentially identifying the source causing them. The discovery was made utilizing the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.
The presence of another star in the system, HD 135344A, devoid of a protoplanetary disk, presents an intriguing contrast with the star orbited by the potential planet, HD 135344B. Both stars are of similar age, yet their environmental disparities pose unanswered scientific questions. Further investigations, possibly employing different wavelengths, will be necessary to ascertain the nature of the object observed within the disk of gas and dust.