Astronomy Professor Helps Discover “Birth of a Planet System”

A College of Charleston Astronomy professor is one of a group of international scientists to capture a snapshot showing the birth of a planet system around a young star. The discovery marks an important step in efforts to unlock the mysteries surrounding the development of planets.

The image discovery was made by a team of scientist that included College of Charleston professor Joseph Carson. The team discovered the planet formation area after several years of research using the Subaru 8.2m telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The star system is located in the constellation Auriga (the Charioteer) at the distance of 460 light years from Earth. It is a very young star at about 1 million years old.

Using imaging collected by the Subaru 8.2m telescope, the research group succeeded in photographing fine details of this protoplanetary disk (a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas surrounding a young newly formed star) for the first time in the world. The high dynamic range, high spatial resolution image of the very vicinity of the central star revealed the structure for the first time in the scale of our own solar system. No other images, whether from ground-based or space-based telescopes, have ever penetrated so close to central stars, showing the details of their disks.

The team also discovered evidence for planet formation around another young star, LkCa15, that has an age of several million years. It provided the first direct imaging example of the central gap in the disk, where it is believed that an unseen giant planet is sweeping up disk material.

“What we are seeing here is the birthplace of a planetary system inside an otherwise tumultuous and sometimes violent star-disk system,” says Carson. “In a sense, it gives us a glimpse into what our own solar system’s birth might have resembled.  It helps bring us a step closer to understanding our own planet’s origins, along with the conditions that allowed life to survive and prosper.”

This ongoing project is expected to continue so that scientists can better understand the formation process of the planetary system.