Latest news with #MelissaMcClure
Times of Oman
2 hours ago
- Science
- Times of Oman
Astronomers capture dawn of new solar system for 1st time
Astronomers have spotted the earliest known signs of rocky planet formation around a young, sun-like star for the first time. The discovery offers an unprecedented glimpse into what may have happened at the dawn of our own solar system. What did the researchers see? Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's ALMA array in Chile, researchers peered into the gas disk surrounding the infant star HOPS-315, about 1,370 light-years away. The star is just 100,000 to 200,000 years old — a newborn in cosmic terms — and is thought to be on its way to becoming a yellow dwarf like our sun. "We've captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars," said lead researcher Melissa McClure of Leiden Observatory. "For the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation are happening right now." "Our study shows that it could be a common process during the earliest stage of planet formation," McClure said. The observations, published in the science journal Nature, show a glowing, lightning bug-like system against the dark void — a cosmic nursery where planets may one day emerge. While it's impossible to say how many planets HOPS-315 might produce, its massive gas disk could support as many as eight — just like our solar system — though that process may take a million years or more. How did the team carry out the research? Thanks to a tilt in the star's disk and a helpful gap in its outer region, the telescopes were able to detect signs of silicate minerals and silicon monoxide gas condensing. These are the very building blocks believed to have formed Earth and other rocky planets in our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago. The action is happening in a region similar to where our solar system's asteroid belt sits — between Mars and Jupiter. These early-stage solids had never been directly observed in such young systems before, leaving scientists unsure whether Earth's origin story was a rare case. What might it mean? Fred Ciesla of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study, called it a long-awaited breakthrough. "This is one of the things we've been waiting for," he said. "There's a rich opportunity here." Astronomers hope similar discoveries will reveal how common planet formation is — and whether Earth-like worlds are a universal phenomenon or a rare cosmic fluke.
DW
4 hours ago
- Science
- DW
Astronomers capture dawn of new solar system for 1st time – DW – 07/20/2025
In a cosmic first, astronomers have spotted the earliest signs of rocky planet formation around a young star. The discovery offers a rare vision of how Earth-like worlds may begin. Astronomers have spotted the earliest known signs of rocky planet formation around a young, sun-like star for the first time. The discovery offers an unprecedented glimpse into what may have happened at the dawn of our own solar system. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's ALMA array in Chile, researchers peered into the gas disk surrounding the infant star HOPS-315, about 1,370 light-years away. The star is just 100,000 to 200,000 years old — a newborn in cosmic terms — and is thought to be on its way to becoming a yellow dwarf like our sun. "We've captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars," said lead researcher Melissa McClure of Leiden Observatory. "For the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation are happening right now." "Our study shows that it could be a common process during the earliest stage of planet formation," McClure said. The observations, published in the science journal Nature, show a glowing, lightning bug-like system against the dark void — a cosmic nursery where planets may one day emerge. While it's impossible to say how many planets HOPS-315 might produce, its massive gas disk could support as many as eight — just like our solar system — though that process may take a million years or more. Thanks to a tilt in the star's disk and a helpful gap in its outer region, the telescopes were able to detect signs of silicate minerals and silicon monoxide gas condensing. These are the very building blocks believed to have formed Earth and other rocky planets in our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago. The action is happening in a region similar to where our solar system's asteroid belt sits — between Mars and Jupiter. These early-stage solids had never been directly observed in such young systems before, leaving scientists unsure whether Earth's origin story was a rare case. Fred Ciesla of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study, called it a long-awaited breakthrough. "This is one of the things we've been waiting for," he said. "There's a rich opportunity here." Astronomers hope similar discoveries will reveal how common planet formation is — and whether Earth-like worlds are a universal phenomenon or a rare cosmic fluke. "Are there Earth-like planets out there," asked co-author Merel van't Hoff of Purdue University, "or are we so special that we might not expect it to occur very often?"
Time of India
a day ago
- Science
- Time of India
Birth of planet captured: Astronomers share rare glimpses of newborn planet about 1,300 light-yrs away
For the first time, a team of researchers has captured the birth of a planet around a star beyond our Sun. The observations captured the very beginnings of planet formation , a rare glimpse into the cosmic process that gives rise to Earth-like planets around a star. Observations were made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to capture the formation of a new planetary system. Scientists detected the formation of the first specks of planet-building material around a baby star named HOPS-315 , located about 1,300 light-years away. HOPS-315 is considered a 'proto-star', meaning it's in the earliest stage of stellar evolution. These young stars are often surrounded by protoplanetary discs - rotating clouds of gas and dust where planets are born. This image shows jets of silicon monoxide (SiO) blowing away from the baby star HOPS-315. (Pic credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al.) by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like New Apartments Just Listed – Take a Look Apartments | Search Ads Learn More Undo "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our Sun," said Melissa McClure, lead author of the study from Leiden University in the Netherlands. The findings were published in the journal Nature . The team found evidence of silicon monoxide (SiO) gas and solid crystalline minerals in the disc surrounding HOPS-315. This suggests that planet-forming materials are beginning to condense from gas into solid particles, an evolutionary phase in the birth of planets. "This process has never been seen before in a protoplanetary disc — or anywhere outside our Solar System," said Edwin Bergin, co-author and professor at the University of Michigan, USA. The discovery unveils a never-before-seen phase in planet formation and opens a new window into studying how planetary systems like our own come into being.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb Spots Planets Forming Into Solar System in Real Time, Like an Organism's First Cells
Astronomers have spotted a planetary system being conceived from the swirl of gas and dust surrounding a star — giving us an unprecedented, real-time look at how our solar system would've formed some 4.6 billion years ago. The findings, published as a study in the journal Nature, are the first time we're seeing such an early stage of planets being formed anywhere in the cosmos. "We've captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars," lead author Melissa McClure at the Leiden Observatory told the Associated Press. "For the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation are happening right now." Inchoate planetary systems have been spotted before — but they were further along in their development. Instead, what's been captured here, using the James Webb Telescope and the ALMA telescope in Chile, is roughly the equivalent of an organism's first cells being formed. The baby star, or protostar, orchestrating the system's birth is HOPS-315, a G-type star like our Sun — though much younger — located some 1,370 light years away in the constellation Orion. HOPS-315 is surrounded by a hot, rotating circumstellar envelope of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disk. There, the astronomers spotted reservoirs of matter condensing together to form solid mineral grains. Over millions of years, the mineral grains will cool off and coalesce to form larger planetesimals, which serve as building blocks of a nascent planet — either going straight to being a rocky planet like Earth, or the solid core of a giant planet like Jupiter or Uranus. Crucially, the building materials the astronomers detected were silicon monoxide gas and crystalline silicate minerals, which are believed to have played a major role in our own system's birth. "This process has never been seen before in a protoplanetary disk — or anywhere outside our solar system," co-author Edwin Bergin, a professor at the University of Michigan, said in a statement about the work. Per the AP, the solid formation is taking place in a location equivalent to the asteroid belt in our own star system between Mars and Jupiter, where the leftover materials of our system's planet forming years can still be found. Asteroids are ancient planetesimals that never got a chance to make it big, still harboring stores of silicon monoxide and crystalline silicate that astronomers have dated to estimate the timeline of the solar system's formation. The silicon monoxode and crystalline silicate were first spotted by the James Webb, indicating the presence of a protoplanetary disk. But the data wasn't clear enough to determine the exact location they were originating around the star. Fortuitously, Nature noted, the disk was oriented in a way that allowed astronomers to see it unobstructed by HOPS-315's outflow, a highly energetic jet of material that fell onto the star before being blasted into space. Outflows tend to overpower the infrared spectrum that astronomers favor to inspect dense regions like a protoplanetary disk. Thanks to the disk's orientation, though, the ALMA telescope was able to pinpoint the mineral signal's origins to a location about 2.2 astronomical units away from the star, or about 2.2 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. "We're really seeing these minerals at the same location in this extrasolar system as where we see them in asteroids in the Solar System," co-author Logan Francis, a researcher at Leiden University, said in the statement. Many aspects of our solar system's origins remain a mystery, and astronomers can't confidently say how unique its formation is. Can we use it as a blueprint for how planetary systems form throughout the cosmos, or are we a relative oddity? HOPS-315 suggests we have at least a handful of peers. To know for sure, we'll have to check back on how it's doing in a few million years — or more realistically, the James Webb and ALMA telescope will spot more burgeoning systems for us to pry into. More on astronomy: James Webb Space Telescope Spots Stellar Death Shrouds Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Here's how a star beyond Earth's sun could offer a 'picture of the baby solar system'
In an incredible breakthrough, a team of international astronomers have for the first time ever witnessed the birth of a planetary system beyond Earth's sun that could one day resemble our own. The newborn planetary system appears to be emerging 1,300 light-years away around a baby star known as HOPS-315 that resembles a young version of the Earth's own sun. Using data from ground and space telescopes, the researchers were able to pinpoint the moment when the first specks of planet-forming material began to coalesce around the protostar. The finding marks a major milestone in the study of planetary formation and opens a window into the past of our own solar system, the researchers say in a press release from the European Space Observatory. "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our sun,' lead researcher Melissa McClure, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a statement. How do planets form? Our solar system holds clues Stars form when an accumulation of gas and dust collapses because of gravity. Scientists think that generally what follows is the formation of planets, which emerge from the giant, doughnut-shaped disk of gas and dust that circles young stars, known as protoplanetary discs. In our solar system, the first solid material to condense near Earth around the sun is found trapped within ancient meteorites – or rocks from space that survive their trip through Earth's atmosphere. Astronomers can determine the age of these space rocks to calculate when the clock started on the solar system's formation. Because meteorites are packed with crystalline minerals that contain silicon monoxide, they can condense at the extremely high temperatures present in young planetary discs. Over time, these condensed solids bind together in a process that kickstarts planet formation as they gain both size and mass. Jupiter's gravity, often called the "architect" of our solar system, played a critical role in shaping the orbits of other planets and sculpting the disk of gas and dust from which they formed. Webb telescope helps spot planetary formation around HOPS-315 Now, evidence of these hot minerals were found just beginning to solidify in the disc around HOPS-315. The minerals were first identified using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. To trace the origin of the signals, the team turned to the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), an array of 66 radio telescopes located in the desert of northern Chile. The data from the observatories suggested that the chemical signals were coming from a small region of the disc around the star equivalent to the orbit of the asteroid belt around the Earth's sun, according to the researchers. Findings serve as 'picture of the baby solar system' It's not uncommon for astronomers to see protoplanetary discs containing infant Jupiter-like planets around baby stars like HOPS-315. But scientists have always known that the first solid parts of planets, known as planetesimals, must form much earlier. Merel van 't Hoff, an astronomer at Purdue University who co-authored the research, compares the findings to "a picture of the baby solar system." "We're seeing a system that looks like what our solar system looked like when it was just beginning to form,' van 't Hoff said in a statement. For that reason, the discovery could help astronomers glean more insights into our own cosmic history. It also provides astronomers with new information to study early planet formation that could serve as a model for newborn solar systems across the galaxy. The research was published July 16 in the journal Nature. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New solar system similar to Earth's seen by astronomers Solve the daily Crossword
