First Information About A New ‘Baby Planet’ Discovered

One of the topics that astronomers are interested in is the formation of planets. Uncovering this process is believed to both help to better understand our planet. One structure focused on in these studies is a developing baby planet.

Thanks to the new methods that scientists have developed, small planets hidden in protoplanetary disks can be revealed. While this type of study was used in the latest research, the opportunity to witness the birth of a planet arose.

At first everything was really a cloud of gas and dust.

As if to prove the truth of the phrase “Everything was a cloud of gas and dust”, which we have heard so often before, scientists are trying to reveal baby planets by examining condensed clouds of gas and dust orbiting in a certain orbit. These forming structures are called protoplanetary disks. Thanks to the new method developed by astronomers from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a baby planet expected to be similar in size to Saturn or Neptune in the Solar System has been revealed. The discovery was also published September 14 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

After the discovery, researcher Feng Long and his team, who started to examine the disk called LkCa 15, which is 518 light years away, started their work by compiling the data obtained about the disk since 2019. In subsequent studies, it was observed that there was a change in this gas and dust cloud. A mass of matter and a spring structure were moving at 120 degree angles to each other.

It may have been born as much as 1 to 3 million years ago!

Scientists have revealed that such angles do not occur spontaneously, and that the materials that make up the disk also have a certain cycle in the gravitational field created by their stars and a planet. Mathematical modeling studies also revealed that there must be a planet with a 60 degree angle between the clustered matter and the resulting arc. The size of this planet is currently the dimensions of Saturn or Neptune. Its age is estimated to be between 1-3 million years. So if we think about it on a cosmic scale, we can almost say that it is a planet that was just born.

Reaching the image of a newly formed planet is not likely to happen anytime soon due to technological limitations, but such methods seem to make it possible to observe new baby planets in the future. Researchers hope so, too.