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A prominent spiral structure with a twisted dust and gas ring around the star AB Aurigae. The image was released on May 20, 2020 – Photo: EPA.
The young exoplanet is forming around the star AB Aurigae, which is about 2.4 times the mass of the Sun and located in our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 520 light-years away from Earth (around 9.5 trillion kilometers).
With the VLT, researchers have observed a prominent spiral structure with a twisted dust and gas ring around the star AB Aurigae. This twisted ring is a clear indication of a forming planet.
“It takes millions of years for a planet to reach the final stages of formation, so it’s not possible to pinpoint the exact birthdate of a planet. However, we can say that we have nearly captured the moment a planet is in the process of formation,” said astronomer Anthony Boccaletti of the Paris Observatory, who led the research published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
While over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars outside our solar system, little is known about their formation.
Therefore, the scientific community is eagerly seeking to understand more about how these planets form from the condensation of dust and gas in the disks around young stars. This research could provide insights into the process of planet formation, according to Reuters.
Boccaletti mentioned that the distance between the young exoplanet in formation and its star is about 30 times greater than the distance from Earth to the Sun, approximately equivalent to the distance between Neptune and the Sun.
This appears to be a gas planet, not a rocky planet like Earth or Mars, and it may be more massive than Jupiter – the largest planet in our solar system.