Researchers Find Two New Planets That Are Being Formed, Similar To Earth?

NASA, AURA/STScI For ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

JAKARTA - Researchers have discovered two shadowes of gas and dust surrounding a young star TW Hydrae, allegedly produced by two small disks located inside its system.

Both plates are believed to be evidence of a pair of planets being built. The Hydrae TW is less than 10 million years old and is about 200 light years from Earth.

During its growth period, the Solar System may be similar to the Hydrae TW system, about 4.6 billion years ago. Because the young star system when tilted almost facing Earth, is an optimal target to get the right view of the planet's construction page.

The shadow was discovered in observations obtained on June 6, 2021, as part of a multi-year program designed to trace shadows in the stellar disk.

John Debes, lead researcher and lead author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal compared the TW Hydrae disk with Hubble Telescope observations made several years ago.

"We found that the shadow has done something completely different," said Debes, quoted from NASA's website, Saturday, May 6.

"When I first looked at the data, I thought something was wrong with observations because that's not what I expected. I was confused at first, and all my collaborators were like, what happened? We really had to rub our heads and we needed a while to really find an explanation," he added.

Earlier in 2017, astronomers had reported the discovery of a shadow sweeping the surface of the gas and dust disks surrounding the Red Katai star.

The image was not from a planet, but from an inner disk slightly leaning relatively towards a much larger outer disk, causing it to produce a shadow.

One explanation is that the invisible planet's gravity draws dust and gas into the planet's tilted orbit. Furthermore, the best solution found by researchers is that there are two discs that are not aligned in producing shadows.

They were so close to each other in previous observations that they were missed. Over time, it will separate and split into two shadows.

"We've never really seen this before on a protoplanetary disk. It makes the system much more complex than we thought," Debes said.

According to researchers, the discs that are not aligned are most likely caused by the gravitational pull of two planets in a slightly different orbital plane. The Hubble Telescope brings together the holistic views of the system architecture.

The plates may be proxies for planets hitting each other as they rotate around the star.

"It shows that the two planets should be close enough to each other. If one moves faster than the other, this will be noticed in previous observations. It's like two racing cars close to each other, but one slowly overtakes and another lap," explains Debes.

The suspected planet is located in an area approximately Jupiter's distance from the Sun. And, the shadow completes one rotation around the star every 15 years, the expected orbital period at that distance from the star.

Also, these two inner plates are tilted by about five to seven degrees relative to the external disk field. This is comparable to the range of orbital inclination in the Solar System.

"This is in accordance with the typical Solar System architectural style," said Debes.

The outer plate where the shadow falls can extend as far as several times the Kuiper belt radius in the Solar System. The larger plate has a strange gap at a distance of Pluto's average twice from the Sun. This may be evidence of a third planet in the system.

Wherever the planet will be difficult to detect because the light will disappear in the star's glare. In addition, the dust in the system will dim the reflection light.

ESA's Space Gaia observatory may be able to measure the wobbles in stars if Jovian-mass planets withdraw, but this will take years given the long orbital period.