This discovery supports a much-discussed theory about how planets like Jupiter, called “disk instability,” form, the researchers said. The new planet under construction is embedded in a protoplanetary dust and gas disk with a distinct spiral structure that revolves around a young star estimated to be about 2 million years old – the age at which planet formation was taking place in our solar system. The age of our solar system today is 4.6 billion years. “Nature is smart. can produce planets in a number of different ways, “said lead researcher Thayne Currie of the Subaru Telescope and Eureka Scientific. The newly formed planet, called AB Aurigae b, is probably about nine times more massive than Jupiter and orbits its host star at a vast distance of 8.6 billion miles – more than twice as far from Pluto as the Sun. us. At this distance it would take a long time, if not never, for a planet the size of Jupiter to form. This leads researchers to conclude that disk instability allowed this planet to form at such a great distance. And, it contrasts sharply with the expectations of planet formation from the widely accepted nucleus accretion model. All planets are made of material from a peristaltic disk. The dominant theory for the formation of Jovian planets is called the “augmentation nucleus”, a bottom-up approach where planets embedded in the disk grow from small objects – ranging in size from dust grains to boulders – colliding and sticking together. orbiting a star. The new analysis, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, combines data from two Hubble instruments: the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrograph. This data was compared to that of a state-of-the-art planetary imaging instrument called the SCExAO at Japan’s 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Understanding the early days of the formation of Jupiter-like planets provides astronomers with more insight into the history of our solar system. This discovery paves the way for future studies of the chemical composition of protoplanetary disks such as AB Aurigae, including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. 20220406-132805
