A team of international researchers has made a groundbreaking discovery about the formation of planetary systems. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), they observed a site of planet formation around a young star called PDS 70, which hosts two known planets. The new findings reveal a localized accumulation of dust grains outside the planetary orbits, suggesting that already-formed planets play a crucial role in facilitating the potential formation of the next planet.
The researchers, led by Kiyoaki Doi, performed high-resolution observations of the protoplanetary disk around PDS 70 at a wavelength of 3 mm with ALMA. These observations provided a clearer picture of the distribution of dust grains than previous studies, revealing that the dust emission is concentrated in a specific direction within a narrow region outside the planets.
This discovery contributes to our understanding of planetary system formation and how already-formed planets interact with their surroundings to trigger the formation of new planets. The findings also highlight the importance of multi-wavelength observations, such as those conducted with ALMA, which provide a unique perspective on celestial objects and can help unravel complex scientific mysteries.
The study has been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available on the arXiv preprint server.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2024-12-alma-dusty-site-planet-formation.html