Barely 370 light-years away from us , in the constellation Centaurus, the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered how gas and dust are slowly creeping into a new world that is in its phase of training.
The researchers measured the massive growth rate of PDS 70b using the observatory’s unique ultraviolet sensitivities to capture radiation from extremely hot gas falling on the planet.
This massive, Jupiter-sized world, which orbits at roughly the same distance as Uranus from the Sun and began to form about 5 million years ago, could be at the end of its formation process, opening up a new way to study Earth. formation of giant planets in remote solar systems.
“We just don’t know much about how giant planets grow,” said Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin. “This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness the fall of material on a planet . Our results open a new area for this research ”.
This huge exoplanet orbits the orange dwarf star PDS 70, which is already known to have two actively forming planets within a huge disk of dust and gas that surrounds the star. At just 5 million years old , the planet is still collecting material and accumulating mass.
“Our measurements suggest that the planet is at the end of its formation process,” they comment.
Referencia: “Hubble Space Telescope UV and Hα Measurements of the Accretion Excess Emission from the Young Giant Planet PDS 70 b” by Yifan Zhou, Brendan P. Bowler, Kevin R. Wagner, Glenn Schneider, Dániel Apai, Adam L. Kraus, Laird M. Close, Gregory J. Herczeg and Min Fang, 29 April 2021, The Astronomical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/abeb7a
