Astronomy

An international astronomer team has achieved what is equivalent to a cosmic ultrasound: They have obtained the first image of a giant gaseous planet In full formation process, embedded in the middle of a dust and gas disk with multiple rings. The system, called Wispit 2B, has become overnight in the perfect laboratory for Understand how the planets are bornincluding, perhaps, our own Jupiter. A photograph hunted at the best time. The discovery, published in Two simultaneous articles In The Astrophysical Journal Letters, he not only shows us the planet Wispit 2B, a giant of about five times Jupiter’s mass, but has “caught him with his hands in the dough.” They have detected it by emitting the characteristic brightness of overheated hydrogen, the definitive test that is actively attracting material from the disc that surrounds it to continue growing. And if that were not enough, there are indications of an even more massive planet. A cosmic vinyl disk. The first piece of this puzzle is provided by the Sphere instrument of Vary Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, where the star Wispit 2, a young solar analogue (just five million years old) located about 133 light years from us was observed. What they found was spectacular: an extensive Protoplanetary disc of 380 astronomical units (UA) structured in four concentric rings, such as the grooves of a vinyl disk. The planetary formation theory predicts that the mass planets, when orbiting their star, “clean” their gravitational path, creating gaps on the gas and dust disc. And precisely, in the most prominent hole between the second and third ring, about 57 UA of its star, was a point of light: Wispit 2B. A discovery that had to confirm again. To make sure it was not a distant star in the background, the team made observations in four different moments over almost two years. The results were conclusive: the object moved next to the star, following a Keplerian orbit consisting of his position in the hole of the disc. The analysis of its brightness in different infrared wavelengths (Bands H and Ks) allowed to estimate its mass by approximately 4.9 times Jupiter’s mass. This is the first unequivocal detection of a planet on an album with multiple rings, directly confirming the interaction between the planet and the disc that forms it. A second definitive test. If the first investigation was the photo of the crime, The secondled by Laird M. Close, is the recorded video confession. Using the advanced Magao-X adaptive optical system in the Magallanes telescope, they also observed the system in a very specific wavelength: that of the H-Alpha (656.3 nm). This broadcast is an unmistakable firm of the accrection, the process by which a planet attracts gas from its surroundings. When hydrogen gas falls to the planet, it is compressed and heated to thousands of degrees, emitting a characteristic reddish glow. And WISPT 2B was shining intensely in H-Alfa. We already know its growth rate. This detection not only confirms undoubtedly that Wispit 2B is a growing protoplanet, but allowed the team to calculate at what rhythm it is collecting matter: 2.25 × 10−12 solar masses per year. It is a slow but constant rhythm, which offers us a unique window to the final stages of the formation of a gas giant. This finding makes Wispit 2B one of the very few protopoplanets (along with the celebrities PDS 70b yc) of which there is direct evidence of accretion, that is, that they grow gradually using external matter. A second planet and a mystery of inclination. The surprises do not end there. The high resolution data of the Magao-X team revealed a second candidate object much closer to the star, about 15 UA. Baptized as CC1 (Close Companion 1), this object is extremely red and its brightness is consistent with a planet about nine times Jupiter’s mass. In addition, researchers have indicated a curious statistical coincidence. Counting to Wispit 2B, there are already four systems with protoplanets detected by their H-Alpha broadcast. Surprisingly, they all have a very similar inclination with respect to our line of vision (between 37 ° and 52 °). The probability that this occurs by chance is only 1% (a 2.6σ significance). Why is Wispit 2B so important. There are several reasons behind. The first of these is that it visually demonstrates that giant giant planets can be formed at great distances from their star and that they are responsible for sculpting the holes in protoplanetary discs. But the interesting thing is that it has become a unique laboratory, since it is such a “clean” and well-defined system, it allows us to study the planet-Disco interaction with an unprecedented detail. An analogue of our past: The star is similar to our sun in his childhood, so studying Wispit 2 is like looking at a snapshot of how our own solar system could have formed. That is why the next step will be to point to Wispit 2B with the Jame Webb space telescope and the Alma Observatory. With them, you can analyze the planet’s atmosphere and analyze the chemical secrets you can hide. In Xataka | When the first human being stepped on the moon we all believed that he had abandoned the “earth.” We were wrong