Snow in another solar system - The Mundo.es

With the help of the ALMA observatory deployed in the Atacama Desert (Chile), a team of astronomers has captured the first image a snow line in space on a nascent solar system, according an article published in the journal ‘Science Express’.

Like a certain height in the Andes the beginning of the snow temperature change indicates a “snow line” in space could play an essential role in the formation and chemical composition of the planets that surround a star.

The snow line is in a solar system where temperatures reach freezing and collect water and other chemicals that otherwise would vapors.

Astronomers believe

lines snow in space play a vital role in the formation of the planets because moisture helps frozen dust grains clump together.

With the help of the interferometer known as Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, astronomers imaged radial wave length of a line of carbon monoxide snow around ‘TW Hydrae’, a star young about 175 million light years from Earth.

‘TW Hydrae’, in the constellation of Hydra, is considered child solar system closest to our solar system . “We had evidence of snow lines in our solar system, but now we can see one with our own eyes. This is very interesting,” said Edwin Bergin, professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan.

Different chemicals

freeze at different distances from a central star. In the solar system where Earth is water freezes at a distance about five times the distance from Earth to the Sun is the region where orbits Jupiter .

snow lines of various chemical compounds can be linked to the formation of specific types of planets.

line carbon monoxide in our system corresponds to the orbit of Neptune and could also mark the site from icy bodies which form such as comets and dwarf planets Pluto type , according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

first observed

So far

snow lines were detected only by their spectral signature. never had taken direct images so that its precise location and extent could not be determined.

“ALMA has given us the first real image of a line of snow around a young star, which is very exciting because tells us about the very early period in the history of our own solar system “said Chunhua” Charlie “Qi, a researcher at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Now we can see the previously hidden details about the frozen outer edges of another solar system, one that has much in common with our own solar system when he was less than ten million years of existence.” It was difficult to take pictures of the snow lines because only formed in the central, relatively narrow, of a planet-forming disk. Above and below this region remains solar radiation at a higher temperature gases which prevents ice forming.

outer cocoon of hot gas prevents astronomers to see inside the disc where the gas is frozen. So, instead, pointed your search to a different molecule called diazenilio .

carbon monoxide destroys diazenilio so that can only be detected in regions where the gas is frozen. The diazenilio shines in the millimeter portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and this glow can detect radio telescopes like ALMA.

Tracing the distribution

diazenilio astronomers identified a border to approximately thirty astronomical units ‘TW Hydrae’. An astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the Sun .

snow line, in particular, is interesting because the ice requires carbon monoxide for the formation of methanol, a building block in the full-organic molecules, which are essential for life .

Comets and asteroids

could transport these molecules to new planets forming that are similar to Earth, spreading the ingredients there for life.