Astronomers see a planetary system form for the very first time

The team detected the beginnings of planet formation in a protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star HOPS-315, located about 1,300 light-years from Earth. According to team leader and Leiden University researcher Melissa McClure, this is the first time scientists have been able to pinpoint the initial moment when planets begin to form around another star.

Protostars and protoplanetary disks

Stars are born when cold, dense clouds of interstellar gas and dust collapse under their own gravity, forming what are known as protostars surrounded by a shell of material. Over time, this material flattens into a rotating disk - the very place where planets take shape.

Although astronomers have previously observed young stars with protoplanetary disks and emerging giant planets the size of Jupiter, they had never managed to capture the very first stage of this process.

Clues about what to look for came from crystalline minerals found in meteorites that have fallen to Earth. These minerals, which formed during the birth of the solar system, contain silicon monoxide that condenses at high temperatures. Billions of years ago, these crystals became the first solid “seeds” that gravity bound together into kilometer-wide planetesimals, which are the building blocks of rocky planets like Earth and the cores of gas giants.

Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the ALMA radio observatory in Chile, scientists detected traces of hot minerals condensing in the disk around HOPS-315, including silicon monoxide in both gas and crystalline forms. According to team member Edwin Bergin, an astronomer at the University of Michigan, “this process has never been seen before in a protoplanetary disk - or anywhere outside our solar system.”

Notably, these minerals were found at a distance from the star similar to the location of the asteroid belt in our own system.

Earlier, Kazinform News Agency reported that ESA detected rare interstellar comet.