Astronomers witness newborn planet sculpting the dust around it

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.

The potential planet-in-the-making was detected around the star HD 135344B, within a disc of gas and dust around it called a protoplanetary disc. The budding planet is estimated to be twice the size of Jupiter and as far from its host star as Neptune is from the Sun. It has been observed shaping its surroundings within the protoplanetary disc as it grows into a fully formed planet. 

Protoplanetary discs have been observed around other young stars, and they often display intricate patterns, such as rings, gaps or spirals. Astronomers have long predicted that these structures are caused by baby planets, which sweep up material as they orbit around their parent star. But, until now, they had not caught one of these planetary sculptors in the act.  

In the case of HD 135344B’s disc, swirling spiral arms had previously been detected by another team of astronomers using SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch), an instrument on ESO’s VLT. However, none of the previous observations of this system found proof of a planet forming within the disc. 

Now, with observations from the new VLT’s Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) instrument, the researchers say they may have found their prime suspect. The team spotted the planet candidate right at the base of one of the disc’s spiral arms, exactly where theory had predicted they might find the planet responsible for carving such a pattern. 

In a separate study, Anuroop Dasgupta, a doctoral researcher at ESO and at the Diego Portales University, and colleagues used the ERIS instrument to observe another young star, V960 Mon, which is located 5,342 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros.

K2-22b y BD+054868Ab están llegando a su fin.

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Usando el Satélite de Sondeo de Exoplanetas en Tránsito (TESS) de la NASA, un equipo internacional de astrónomos ha descubierto un nuevo exoplaneta “super-Neptuno” caliente e hinchado. El mundo alienígena recién descubierto, denominado TOI-2498 b, es aproximadamente seis veces más grande y 35 veces más masivo que la Tierra. El hallazgo fue publicado el 16 de mayo en Monthly Notices of the Royal…

Webb Detects Possible Biosignature Gases in Atmosphere of K2-18b

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected the chemical fingerprints of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of the super-Earth exoplanet K2-18b. On Earth, DMS and DMDS are only produced by life, primarily microbial life such as marine phytoplankton. While an unknown chemical process may be the source of these molecules in K2-18b’s atmosphere, the results are the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on an extrasolar planet.

K2-18 is a red dwarf located approximately 111 light-years away in the constellation of Leo.

Also known as EPIC 201912552, the star hosts two massive exoplanets: K2-18b and K2-18c.

First discovered in 2015, K2-18b has a radius of 2.6 times that of Earth and is about 8.6 times as massive.

The planet orbits its star every 33 days at a distance of approximately 0.15 AU and has an Earth Similarity Index of 0.73.

It receives 1.28 times the light intensity of Earth, and its equilibrium temperature is minus 2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit).

Earlier observations of K2-18b identified methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. This was the first time that carbon-based molecules were discovered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in the habitable zone.

Those results were consistent with predictions for a Hycean world: a habitable ocean-covered exoplanet underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

IAC scientists detect a ‘sub-Earth’ orbiting Barnard’s star, the nearest isolated star to the Sun

The single star nearest to the Sun is called Barnard’s star. A team of researchers led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has recently detected a ‘sub-Earth’ orbiting it. This exoplanet, called Barnard b has at least half the mass of Venus and orbits rapidly around its star, so that its year lasts only a little over three Earth days.

This new exoplanet is sixteen times nearer to Barnard’d star than Mercury is to the Sun, and has a surface temperature close to 125oC, so it does not have liquid water on its surface. This discovery, led by the IAC in collaboration with a number of international centres was obtained with spectra from the ESPRESSO  spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.