{"id":25562,"date":"2024-12-14T21:58:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T16:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=25562"},"modified":"2024-12-14T21:58:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T16:13:51","slug":"alma-reveals-the-birthplace-of-a-planetary-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/alma-reveals-the-birthplace-of-a-planetary-system\/","title":{"rendered":"ALMA Reveals the Birthplace of a Planetary System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Atacama Large Millimeter\/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) has successfully observed a site of planet formation by detecting a high concentration of dust grains, a planet-forming material, outside the orbits of just-formed planets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An international research team led by Kiyoaki Doi, then a Ph.D. student at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)\/the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, performed high-resolution observations of a protoplanetary disk around a young star called PDS 70 at a wavelength of 3 mm with ALMA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The object hosts two known planets, and the new ALMA observations revealed a localized accumulation of dust grains outside the planetary orbits. This finding suggests that already-formed planets accumulate the material for a planet and facilitate the potential formation of the next planet. This work contributes to revealing the formation process of planetary systems consisting of multiple planets, like the Solar System.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, more than\u00a05,000 planets\u00a0have been\u00a0identified\u00a0both within and\u00a0outside the solar system. In some cases,\u00a0they\u00a0compose planetary\u00a0systems\u00a0consisting of\u00a0multiple planets. These planets\u00a0are believed to originate from micron-sized dust\u00a0grains\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0protoplanetary disks that surround young stars.\u00a0 However, how\u00a0these\u00a0dust\u00a0grains\u00a0accumulate locally and lead to the\u00a0formation\u00a0of planetary systems\u00a0remains\u00a0unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PDS 70 is the only\u00a0known\u00a0celestial object\u00a0with\u00a0already-formed planets,\u00a0confirmed by optical and infrared observations<\/a>, within a protoplanetary disk. Unveiling the distribution of dust grains in this object will provide insight into how the already-formed planets\u00a0interact with the surrounding protoplanetary disk\u00a0and\u00a0potentially\u00a0influence\u00a0subsequent\u00a0planet formation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous\u00a0observations with ALMA at 0.87 mm revealed ring-shaped emissions from the dust grains outside the planetary orbits. However, the emission\u00a0source\u00a0might\u00a0be optically thick (opaque, with\u00a0dust grains\u00a0on the\u00a0near\u00a0side\u00a0obscuring\u00a0those behind them), and the\u00a0observed\u00a0emissions\u00a0distribution might\u00a0not\u00a0accurately\u00a0reflect the distribution of the dust grains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers, led by Kiyoaki Doi, performed high-resolution observations of the protoplanetary disk around PDS 70 at a wavelength of 3 mm with ALMA. The observations at 3 mm are optically thinner (more transparent),\u00a0providing the distribution of the dust grains more reliably.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new observations at 3 mm showed a different distribution from the previous 0.87 mm observations. They revealed that the dust emission is concentrated in a specific direction within the dust ring outside the planets. This suggests that dust grains, the building blocks of planets, accumulate in a narrow region and form a localized clump.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dust clump outside the planets suggests that the already-formed planets interact with the surrounding disk, concentrating dust grains into a narrow region at the outer edge of their orbit. These\u00a0clumped\u00a0dust\u00a0grains\u00a0are\u00a0thought to\u00a0grow into a\u00a0new\u00a0planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formation of planetary systems, like\u00a0the\u00a0Solar\u00a0System, can be explained by the sequential formation of the planets from inside\u00a0to outside\u00a0by\u00a0repeating\u00a0this process.\u00a0This observational\u00a0work captured\u00a0how\u00a0already-formed\u00a0planets interact with their surroundings and trigger the formation of the next planet, contributing to our understanding of planetary system formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiyoaki\u00a0Doi,\u00a0who\u00a0led\u00a0this work, says, \u201cA\u00a0celestial\u00a0object\u00a0is\u00a0made up\u00a0of\u00a0multiple components, each\u00a0emitting\u00a0radiation at\u00a0different\u00a0wavelengths.\u00a0 Thus,\u00a0observing\u00a0the same object at multiple wavelengths offers a unique perspective on the target.\u00a0In PDS 70, the planets were discovered at optical and infrared wavelengths, while the protoplanetary disk was observed at millimeter wavelengths.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\u00a0work\u00a0shows\u00a0that\u00a0the\u00a0disk\u00a0exhibits\u00a0different morphologies, even\u00a0within\u00a0the\u00a0observation\u00a0wavelength range\u00a0of ALMA. This highlights the\u00a0importance\u00a0of observations\u00a0across various\u00a0wavelengths,\u00a0including multi-wavelength observations with ALMA. Observing\u00a0multiple components\u00a0of a\u00a0target\u00a0with\u00a0various observational settings with different telescopes\u00a0is\u00a0necessary\u00a0for\u00a0a\u00a0comprehensive\u00a0understanding of\u00a0the entire\u00a0system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atacama Large Millimeter\/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) has successfully observed a site of planet formation by detecting a high concentration of dust grains, a planet-forming material, outside the orbits of just-formed planets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",1100,550,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-675x338.jpg",675,338,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-768x384.jpg",750,375,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-675x338.jpg",675,338,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",1100,550,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",1100,550,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",1100,550,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-870x550.jpg",870,550,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-600x550.jpg",600,550,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-600x550.jpg",600,550,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-760x490.jpg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-550x360.jpg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains-95x65.jpg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",640,320,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",96,48,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/high-concentration-of-dust-grains.jpg",150,75,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25564,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25562\/revisions\/25564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}