A team of astronomers has collected images captured with a telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile of more than 80 young stars that could have planets forming around them, in what is one of the largest studies ever carried out on disk formation. planetary.
“This represents a fundamental change in our field of study,” said Christian Ginski, professor at the University of Galway (Ireland) and lead author of one of three articles published on the matter in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
“We’ve gone from the intense study of individual star systems to this huge overview of entire star-forming regions,” he said.
The team studied a total of 86 stars in three different star-forming regions of our galaxy: Taurus and Chameleon I (both about 600 light-years from Earth) and Orion (a gas-rich cloud about 1,600 light-years from us that It is known to be the birthplace of several stars more massive than the Sun).
The observations were compiled by a large international team made up of scientists from more than 10 countries.
The team found that in Orion stars in groups of two or more were less likely to have large planet-forming disks, which is a significant result given that, unlike the Sun, most stars have companions.
Additionally, the uneven appearance of the disks in this region suggests the possibility of the presence of massive planets embedded within them, which could be causing the disks to become warped and misaligned.
To date, more than 5,000 planets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, often within systems markedly different from the solar system itself.
To understand where and how this diversity arises, the astronomical community must look at the dust- and gas-rich disks that surround young stars, the very cradles of planet formation.
These are best detected in huge clouds of gas where the stars themselves are forming.
“Some of these disks show enormous spiral arms, presumably driven by the intricate ballet of orbiting planets,” Ginski stated.
“Others show rings and large grooves generated by planet formation, while others appear smooth and almost inactive in the midst of all this hustle and bustle of activity,” added Antonio Garufi, an astronomer at the Arcetri Astrophysics Observatory of Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics. (INAF) and main author of one of the articles.
As technology advances, the team hopes to delve even deeper into the heart of planet-forming systems.
The large 39-metre mirror on ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), for example, will allow them to study the innermost regions around young stars, where rocky planets like ours could be forming.