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Forming planet observed for first time

An international team of scientists has captured the first-ever
images of a planet in the making. The accumulation of dust and gas
particles onto a new planet—the process by which the planet continues to
form and grow—has been directly observed for the first time.

None of the nearly 1,900 planets previously discovered and confirmed
outside our solar system (called exoplanets) are in the process of
formation.

The findings of the scientists, led by University of Arizona graduates Steph Sallum and Kate Follette and including the University of Sydney’s Professor Peter Tuthill, were published recently in Nature.

A star known as LkCa 15, located 450 light years from Earth, has been
observed exhibiting all the trappings of an expectant parent: it is
surrounded by a vast disc of dust and gas, making an ideal environment
for planets to grow from; the dust shows distinct signs of
disturbance—something within has eaten away part of the disc.

Co-author of the paper Professor Tuthill said the images provided
unambiguous evidence. “This is the first time we’ve imaged a planet that
is definitely still in the process of forming.”

The photo provided the proof: “The difficulty had been that when you
have indirect evidence, there are always alternate explanations that
might fit the data,” Professor Tuthill said.

Researchers are just now being able to image objects that were close
to and much fainter than a nearby star, thanks to specialised
instruments. These include the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT—the
world’s largest telescope, located on Arizona’s Mount Graham—and the
University of Arizona’s Magellan Telescope and its Adaptive Optics
System, MagAO, located in Chile.

Capturing sharp images of distant objects was challenging, in large
part because of atmospheric turbulence, said Professor Laird Close, Dr
Follette’s graduate adviser.

“When you look through the Earth’s atmosphere, what you’re seeing is
cold and hot air mixing in a turbulent way that makes stars shimmer,”
Professor Close said. “To a big telescope, it’s a fairly dramatic thing;
you see a horrible looking image.” The breakthrough was possible
because the Large Binocular Telescope was purpose-built, incorporating a
novel imaging technique to sharpen the images.

Meanwhile, Professor Close and Dr Follette used Magellan’s adaptive
optics system MagAO independently to corroborate the discovery. Using
MagAO’s unique ability to work in visible wavelengths, they captured the
planet’s ‘hydrogen alpha’ spectral fingerprint, the specific wavelength
of light that LkCa 15 and its planets emit as they grow.

When cosmic objects are forming, they get extremely hot, and because
they are forming from hydrogen, those objects all glow a deep red. That
single shade of red light was emitted by both the planet and the star as
they underwent the same growing process, Dr Follette said.

“We were able to separate the light of the faint planet from the
light of the much brighter star and to see that they were both growing
and glowing in this very distinct shade of red,” she said.

Professor Tuthill said the results were only made possible because of
the application of a lot of very advanced new technology to the
business of imaging the stars.

“It’s fantastic to see these cutting-edge instruments now enabling us
to make such exciting discoveries,” Professor Tuthill said.

University of Sydney School of Physics

The University of Sydney School of Physics
is the leading physics department in the country, with outstanding
staff and students undertaking world-leading teaching and research.

The university’s 100 staff and 150 postgraduate students conduct
research across a vast range of interests from nanoparticles to clusters
of galaxies and from theoretical modelling to laboratory experiments.
With access to supercomputers, modern laboratory facilities and
observatories, locally, nationally and internationally, the School of
Physics is the premier environment for physics education and research.

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OzTREKK is a Canadian application and information centre for students considering studying at select Australian
universities. We’re a Canadian company based in Perth, Ontario, midway
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