According to Sci-News, an international group of scientists was observing the star named V960 Mon, which is located 5,000 light-years away from Earth, when they witnessed this “dazzling” event in 2014.
.jpg)
The peculiar, chaotic objects observed by two astronomical observatories are actually planets in the process of being born – Image: ESO/ALMA
Using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO), they discovered a mysterious gathering of complex spiral arms around V960 Mon, extending over a distance larger than the diameter of the Sun.
Seeking additional help from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), the world’s most powerful radio telescope array situated in the Atacama Desert of Chile, they found that these spiral arms were undergoing fragmentation, leading to the formation of peculiar masses.
Only one answer aligned with all the data, and it was a once-in-a-thousand-years moment in astronomical observation. “This discovery is truly exciting because it marks the first detection of giant planet-forming clumps around a young star,” said PGS Alice Zurlo from Diego Portales University (Chile).
The lead author, Philipp Weber, also from Diego Portales University, noted that this is the first observation of gravitational instability on a planetary scale.
This implies that the objects astronomers are currently witnessing are at the very moment of being born: Material around the young star will eventually contract and collapse, leading to the gradual formation of a planet.
“The size of these fuzzy clumps coalescing suggests that future planets must be as large as Jupiter—the largest planet in the Solar System,” the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters concluded.