Youngest planet seen as it's forming
For the first time, scientists have been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it.
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W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii —
Published:
October 21, 2011 Artist’s conception of the view near the planet LkCa 15 b. Credit: Karen L. Teramura, UH IfA
What astronomers are calling LkCa 15 b looks like a hot “protoplanet” surrounded by a swath of cooler dust and gas, which is falling into the still-forming planet. Images have revealed that the forming planet sits inside a wide gap between the young parent star and an outer disk of dust.
“LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about five times younger than the previous record holder,” said Adam Kraus from the University of Hawaii. “This young gas giant is being built out of the dust and gas. In the past, you couldn’t measure this kind of phenomenon because it’s happening so close to the star. But, for the first time, we’ve been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it.”
The optical sleight of hand used by the astronomers is to combine the power of Keck’s adaptive optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry. The former is the use of a deformable mirror to rapidly correct for atmospheric distortions of starlight. The latter involves placing a small mask with several holes in the path of the light collected and concentrated by a giant telescope. With that, the scientists can manipulate the light waves.
“It’s like we have an array of small mirrors,” said Kraus. “We can manipulate the light and cancel out distortions.” The technique allows the astronomers to cancel out the bright light of stars. They can then resolve disks of dust around stars and see gaps in the dusty layers where protoplanets may be hiding.
“Interferometry has actually been around since the 1800s, but through the use of adaptive optics, has only been able to reach nearby young suns for about the last seven years,” said Michael Ireland from the Macquarie University, Australia. “Since then, we’ve been trying to push the technique to its limits using the biggest telescopes in the world, especially Keck.”
The discovery of LkCa 15 b began as a survey of 150 young dusty stars in star-forming regions. That led to the more concentrated study of a dozen stars.
“LkCa 15 was only our second target, and we immediately knew we were seeing something new,” said Kraus. “We could see a faint point source near the star, so thinking it might be a Jupiter-like planet, we went back a year later to get more data.”
In further investigations at varying wavelengths, the astronomers were intrigued to discover that the phenomenon was more complex than a single companion object.
“We realized we had uncovered a super Jupiter-sized gas planet, but that we could also measure the dust and gas surrounding it. We’d found a planet at its very beginning,” said Kraus.
Kraus and Ireland plan to continue their observations of LkCa 15 and other nearby young stars in their efforts to construct a clearer picture of how planets and solar systems form.
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