A group of astronomers have snapped the best photo ever taken of planets forming around an infant star.
This revolutionary new image, which is a part of the testing and verification process for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array's (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities, reveals in astonishing detail the planet-forming disk surrounding HL Tau, a Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
ALMA Deputy Director Stuartt Corder said that these features are almost certainly the result of young planet-like bodies that are being formed in the disk and this is surprising since HL Tau is no more than a million years old and such young stars are not expected to have large planetary bodies capable of producing the structures they see in this image.
All stars are believed to form within clouds of gas and dust that collapse under gravity and ver time, the surrounding dust particles stick together, growing into sand, pebbles, and larger-size rocks, which eventually settle into a thin protoplanetary disk where asteroids, comets, and planets form.
Once these planetary bodies acquire enough mass, they dramatically reshape the structure of their natal disk, fashioning rings and gaps as the planets sweep their orbits clear of debris and shepherd dust and gas into tighter and more confined zones.
The new ALMA image reveals these striking features in exquisite detail, providing the clearest picture to date of planet formation and has now provided direct proof that nature and theory are very much in agreement.
Researcher Tony Beasley said that this new and unexpected result helps understand how the Earth's Solar System came to be and how planets form throughout the Universe.
