Latest news with #HOPS315
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Just Witnessed the Birth of a Solar System for the First Time
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Observations of the young HOPS-315 star system show an environment analogous to what our own nascent Solar System would have looked like billions of years ago. The star is surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, and this disk is the first evidence of debris condensing into what will eventually become planets and other objects. Observing this early phase of evolution around a protostar will allow scientists to learn more about the formation of our own Solar System. If our Solar System had baby pictures from over 4.5 billion years ago, they would look something like the otherworldly swirls of dust and gas surrounding the young star HOPS-315. Nascent planets forming around young stars have been observed before, but until now, what hasn't been seen is the phase of star system formation before that, when mineral particles condense at extreme temperatures from a protoplanetary disk to form what will later become those new planets. The enormous surrounding clouds of gas and dust tend to obscure what was going on. But NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (by making observations at infrared and millimeter wavelengths) has finally revealed chemical signals that are, for a star system, what ultrasound images are for human pregnancies. The sources for these signals were crystalline minerals floating in hot silicon monoxide (SiO) gas in the inner region of the protoplanetary disk around HOPS-315. The star and its disk are located 1,300 light-years away, which means we are seeing them as they existed during humanity's year 700. And because a thousand years is a blink of an eye in cosmic terms, HOPS-315 is probably still a developing protostar. When an international team of researchers found out about the Webb observations, they zeroed in with ESO's Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and captured the moment that minerals (which had sublimated in the intense heat, meaning that they evaporated without turning liquid) started to condense into planetary embryos. 'The first high-temperature minerals to recondense from this gaseous reservoir start the clock on planet formation,' said the team (led by astronomer Melissa McClure of Leiden University in the Netherlands) in a study recently published in the journal Nature. This is what McClure goes on to call a 't=0 moment' in the creation of a new planetary system. When she and her team compared their findings with models of how our Solar System came into being, they found that the formation of solids from cooling gases and mineral dust in the HOPS-315 system mirrored what is thought to have happened in our own stellar territory. The materials that form from the early phases of this process are known as refractory solids, which can survive intense heat without degrading. When our Solar System was forming, the temperature around proto-Earth is thought to have been around 327 degrees Celsius (620 degrees Fahrenheit). Remnants of the first solids that ever condensed in this region of our Solar System can be found embedded in primordial meteorites that have crashed to Earth, taking the form of flecks of minerals. Some of these flecks are even older than the Solar System itself—the presolar grains in the Murchison meteorite, for instance, go back 7 billion years. They are thought to have come from the remains of ancient stars that were swept through the interstellar medium, forming a new nebula that eventually flattened into the protoplanetary disk from which our Solar System emerged. 'Comparison with condensation models with rapid grain growth and disk structure models suggests the formation of refractory solids analogous to those in our Solar System,' McClure said. And if the HOPS-315 system continues to evolve as our own system did, minerals will collide and stick to each other until they form larger and larger rocks, which will accrete into planetesimals and, eventually, actual planets. We'll just have to keep watching and learning. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
Daily Tribune
5 days ago
- Science
- Daily Tribune
Astronomers observe birth of a solar system for first time
AFP | Paris Astronomers said yesterday they had observed the moment when planets start forming around a distant star for the first time, revealing a process that sheds light on the birth of our own solar system. The new planetary system is forming around the baby star HOPS-315 -- which resembles our own Sun in its youth -- 1,300 light years from Earth in the Orion Nebula. Young stars are surrounded by massive rings of gas and dust called protoplanetary discs, which is where planets form. Inside these swirling discs, crystalline minerals that contain the chemical silicon monoxide can clump together. This process can snowball into kilometre-sized "planetesimals", which one day grow into full planets. In our home Solar System, the crystalline minerals that were the starter dough for Earth and Jupiter's core are believed to have been trapped in ancient meteorites. Now astronomers have spotted signs that suggest these hot minerals are starting to solidify in the disc surrounding HOPS315, according to a new study in the journal Nature. "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our Sun," lead study author Melissa McClure of Leiden University in the Netherlands said in a statement. The minerals around the star were first spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope. Then the astronomers used the European Southern Observatory's ALMA telescope in Chile to find out exactly where the chemical signals were coming from. They discovered that these minerals are in a small portion of the disc which is similar to the asteroid belt that surrounds our Sun. This will allow scientists to watch the process that may have birthed our home planet. "We're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form," said study co-author Merel van 't Hoff of Purdue University in the US.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Science
- CBS News
Astronomers capture birth of new solar system around a sun-like baby star
Astronomers have, for the first time, discovered the moment when planets started to form around a sun-like baby star, scientists reported Wednesday. The specks of planet-forming material are emerging around HOPS-315, a protostar or baby star located 1,300 light-years away from us. One light year is approximately 5.88 trillion miles. While astronomers have seen discs of gas and dust around protostars before, they've never before identified a new planetary system at such an early stage. Minerals in the system around HOPS-315 are just starting to form. "We're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form," study co-author Merel van 't Hoff, a professor at Purdue University, said in a news release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The observatory paired up with NASA's Webb Space Telescope to identify the minerals forming the new solar system. Researchers turned to data from our own solar system to determine that these minerals show the start of a new system. In Earth's solar system, the first solid materials to form can now be found inside ancient meteorites. Those ancient meteorites contain a mineral called silicon monoxide, which only forms at extremely high temperatures, like those near a young star. Scientists were able to identify the formation of silicon monoxide around HOPS-315, which they said tells them they've caught the development of a solar system at an early stage. "This is the first time this early stage of planet-building has ever been observed outside our own Solar System," the Planetary Society wrote in a social media post about the discovery. The discovery marks "the birth of the seeds of the planets," study co-author Edwin Bergin, a professor at the University of Michigan, told CBS News. The silicate-mineral rich material around HOPS-315 will make planets after another million years or so. "So we are watching the beginnings of the construction of planets," Bergin said. With the discovery, Bergin said researchers now know what to look for to find other budding systems. ESO's Alma telescope network in Chile captured an image of the still-forming planetary system around HOPS-315. In orange, the image shows the distribution of carbon monoxide blowing away from HOPS-315. Blue shows a narrow jet of silicon monoxide, which is also beaming away from the baby star. Astronomers hope it can help them learn more about the dawn of our solar system. "This system is one of the best that we know to actually probe some of the processes that happened in our Solar System," van 't Hoff said in a news release. HOPS-315 is much younger than the Sun; it's about 100,000 years old, Bergin said. "So we get a glimpse of the system in its infancy," Bergin said in an email. "Given that the Sun is 4.6 Billion years old this is a baby star that is still gaining mass and getting bigger."
The Independent
6 days ago
- Science
- The Independent
Scientists witness birth of solar system in unique spectacle
Scientists have for the first time observed a solar system in the earliest stages of its formation. Using a powerful telescope, researchers witnessed the initial material clumping together to form planets. This breakthrough offers new insights into how solar systems, including our own, develop. The nascent system is forming around HOPS-315, a young star approximately 1300 light-years from Earth. The observations captured the very beginning of planet formation within the star's protoplanetary disc.
South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Astronomers observe birth of a solar system for the first time
Astronomers said on Wednesday they had observed the moment when planets start forming around a distant star for the first time, revealing a process that sheds light on the birth of our own solar system. The new planetary system is forming around the baby star HOPS-315 - which resembles our own Sun in its youth - 1,300 light years from Earth in the Orion Nebula. Young stars are surrounded by massive rings of gas and dust called protoplanetary discs, which is where planets form. Inside these swirling discs, crystalline minerals that contain the chemical silicon monoxide can clump together. This process can snowball into kilometre-sized 'planetesimals', which one day grow into full planets. In our home Solar System, the crystalline minerals that were the starter dough for Earth and Jupiter's core are believed to have been trapped in ancient meteorites. Now astronomers have spotted signs that suggest these hot minerals are starting to solidify in the disc surrounding HOPS-315, according to a new study in the journal Nature.
