The planets are born on gas and dust discs around young stars. Astronomers are very interested in the process of formation of the planet, and understand that the process is one of JWST’s main scientific objectives.
PDS 70 is a nearby star with two nascent planets that are formed on their album, two of the few exoplanets that astronomers have photographed directly.
The researchers developed an innovative approach to observe PDS 70 with the JWST and discovered more details about the system, including the possible presence of a third planet.
PDS 70 is an orange dwarf star about 370 light years away and houses two young and growing planets: PDS 70b and PDS 70c.
The European South Observatory Very large telescope (VLT) both planets photographed directly, and PDS 70b has the distinction of being the first protoplanet each image directly. The VLT achieved the feat in 2018 with its innovator SPHERE instrument.
The observations of the sphere, along with other observations, allowed astronomers to obtain a much more detailed look at the atmospheres, masses and temperatures of the planets.
Now, the JWST has taken another look at the couple of young planets. The results are in a new article in The Astronomical Journal. It is titled “The James Webb interferometer: interferometric detections based on the PDS 70 B and C to 4.8 m,“And the main author is Dori Blakely.
Blakely is a postgraduate student in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
The JWST Nearby infrared images and spectrographers without clefts (Niriss) has a characteristic called Opening masking interferometry (AMI), which allows you to function as an interferometer.
Use a special mask with small holes on the primary mirror of the telescope. The interferogram that creates has a much larger resolution because the effective size of the telescope becomes much larger.
“In this work, we present the observations of the James Webb interferometer of PDs 70 with the Niriss F480m filter, the first interferometric observations based on the space of this system,” write the authors.
They found evidence of material surrounding PDS 70 B and C, which strengthens the idea that the planets are still being formed.
“This is like seeing a family photo of our solar system when I was just a small child. It is incredible to think about how much we can learn from a system,” said Principal Author Blakely in a Press release.
Previous observations of the PDS 70 planets were made in shorter wavelengths, which were best explained by models for low dough stars and brown dwarfs. But the JWST observed them at longer wavelengths, the longest with which they had been observed.
These observations detected more light than the previous observations, and the dwarf models of low dough/brown could not account for the light.
JWST’s observations suggest the presence of warm material around both planets, which is interpreted as material that accumulates from a Circunplanetary disc.
“Our PDS 70 B and C photometry provides tentative emission evidence of IR MID-IIR disk through spectral energy distribution models to these new measurements and those found in the literature,” the authors write .
The results indicate that PDS 70 and their planets compete for the same material necessary to grow. The star is a T-Tauri star That is only 5.4 million years old.
It will not reach the main sequence of tens of millions more than years and is still actively accumulating material.
“These observations give us an incredible opportunity to witness the formation of the planet as it happens,” said Doug Johnstone co -author of the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysical Research Center.
“See planets in the act of accumulating material helps us answer long -standing questions about how planetary systems are formed and evolved. It’s like seeing a solar system built before our own eyes.”
New research also presents additional evidence that supports a third planet around the stars, supposedly appointed PDS 70D.
A 2024 article presented touches of a Third planet. However, there was a lot of uncertainty.
The authors of that article wrote that they may have found another exoplanet, but it could also be a group of dust or an internal spiral of material.
“Therefore, D studies are especially exciting,” the authors wrote.
While this new research is not only a follow -up study on the exoplanet potential, it has limited some of the properties of the object, whatever.
If there is a third planet, it is significantly different from the other two. “… If the emission previously observed to shorter wavelengths is due to a planet, this putative planet has an atmospheric composition different from PDs 70 B or C,” explain the authors.
“Monitoring observations will be needed to determine the nature of this emission.”
This article was originally published by Universe today. Read The original article.
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