Achieve the clearest images of planet formation – La Vanguardia

Washington (EFE) .- The telescope Soul , located in the desert of Atacama (Chile) has allowed astronomers to capture the best images collected so far the formation of a planet around an infant star, reported the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

These images are achieved thanks to new high-resolution capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA), reveal with unprecedented detail the planets forming disk surrounding the white dwarf HL Tau, located 450 light years from Earth.

The HL Tau is a Sun-like star extremely young in the constellation Taurus, in which system the ALMA radio telescope has identified great detail multiple concentric rings separated by spaces clearly defined, suggesting that planet formation is well developed around it.

” These features are almost certainly the result of the formation of planet-like bodies in the disk, “said the deputy director of ALMA, Stuartt Corder said in a statement.

” This is surprising, he added, because HL Tau has no more than one million years and as young stars are not expected to have as great as to produce structures like we see in this picture “planetary bodies.

It is believed that all stars form in clouds of gas and dust collapse under gravity, and around them, over time, dust particles adhering together will generate sand, stones and rocks that will eventually settle into a thin protoplanetary disk where they form asteroids, comets and planets, the NRAO said.

Once these planetary bodies acquire enough mass, how to reconfigure the disk structure in which they are born, creating disks with gaps as planets orbits cleaned material and lead dust and gas to more precise areas.

The new ALMA image shows these features with “exquisite detail” provide the clearest view yet of the formation planets and a “direct evidence of the nature and theory are very concordant,” according to the observatory.

“The first time I saw these pictures I thought that these were a simulation,” said Tony Beasley, director of the NRAO, who predicted that insurance will be able to see into the future with this telescope “disks complex” and even “the planets across the empty spaces between the disks.”

” This is a very exciting time and the beginning of a long journey for ALMA, “he added. ALMA is an international astronomy facility in cooperating countries in Europe, North America, East Asia and Chile.