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L. Calcada / ESO
This artist's impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet in the ring of dust around the young star HD 100546. This system is also suspected to contain another large planet orbiting closer to the star.
By Clara Moskowitz
Space.com
Astronomers have captured what may be the first-ever direct photograph of an alien planet in the process of forming around a nearby star.
The picture, which captured a giant alien planet as it is coming together, was snapped by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. It shows a faint blob embedded in a thick disk of gas and dust around the young star HD 100546. The object appears to be a baby gas giant planet, similar to Jupiter, forming from the disk's material, scientists say.
"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," astronomer Sascha Quanz of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, leader of the research team, said in a statement. "If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage."
The star HD 100546, which lies 335 light-years from Earth, was already thought to host another giant planet that orbits it about six times farther out than Earth is from the sun. The new potential planet lies even farther, about 10 times the distance of its sibling, at roughly 70 times the stretch between the Earth and sun. [Giant Planet In the Making Spotted? (Video)]
The possible planet seems to fit the picture scientists are building of how worlds form. Stars themselves are born in clouds of gas and dust, and after they form, a disk of leftover material often orbits them. From this disk, baby planets can take shape. That's what appears to be happening here.
For example, the new photo reveals structures in the disk surrounding the star that could be caused by interactions between its material and the forming planet. Furthermore, the data suggest that the material around the planet-blob has been heated up, which is consistent with the planet-forming hypothesis.
Ardila et al. / ESO / NASA / ESA
This composite image shows views of the gas and dust around the young star HD 100546, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (left) and from the NACO system on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (right).
The observations were made possible by the NACO adaptive optics instrument on the Very Large Telescope, which compensates for the blurring caused by Earth's atmosphere. The instrument also uses a special coronagraph that observes in near-infrared wavelengths to block out the bright light from the star, so as to see its surroundings better.
"Exoplanet research is one of the most exciting new frontiers in astronomy, and direct imaging of planets is still a new field, greatly benefiting from recent improvements in instruments and data analysis methods," said Adam Amara, another member of the team. "In this research we used data analysis techniques developed for cosmological research, showing that cross-fertilization of ideas between fields can lead to extraordinary progress."
The findings are detailed in a paper to appear online in Thursday's issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
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now can we tell the bible boys and girls - this is creation - this is how we were born - this was us 3 billion years ago - we can actually SEE it happen - this they will not get - this they cant wrap their heads around - but talking snakes in a magic garden and people coming back from the dead from a book written two thousand years ago ...... that ........... that they swallow whole ........... amazing
It would seem that you know very little about the Bible.
While true that creationists insist that the Bible teaches that the earth was created in six 24-hour days, the Genesis account of creation allows for the earth to be billions of years old and does not limit each creative day to 24 hours.
I think what you meant to say is, "It would seem that you know very little about my personal interpretation of the Bible".
Having read the bible myself, I see nothing in Fred's statement that contradicts anything the bible says.
No contradiction, just misinformation. For example, the Bible wasn't written two thousand years ago. Sure, parts of it were, but parts of it, including the creation account in question were written around 3500 years ago. Also, there wasn't a "Magic Garden" ever mentioned in the Bible. Maybe he has an old TV series in mind? He also makes the stereo-typical assumption that people that believe in God and the creation account are unintelligent and unable to understand how there could be a newly formed planet out there.
Yes, that's the answer "A god did it". Sorry weak minded anti-science myth believer please stay out of science articles. They will only continue to contradict what your book of myths says.
Not sure if you are speaking to me or persuasive. Either way, you are as much a man of faith as I am if you believe life on this planet just happened all by itself.
Lets put it this way. There is nothing observable or in nature that would in the least bit support the creation of our universe by supernatural powers. To believe in a 2,000 year old myth that a deity created everything is not rational and takes complete faith.
Life didn't "just happen by itself" but rather was a natural result of the confluence of events that formed our planet the way it did. Mystics would have you believe that our planet is a good host for life because a magic invisible friend (God) did it. Rational people realize that when there are a billion zillion worlds in the universe, some of them are going to be suitable for life, and life will naturally arise on those worlds. Ours happens to be one of them.
No one believes that. There were chemicals 'n stuff. You actually think that sophistry about science requiring faith (which of course it does in certain ways, any half-sentient person will stipulate to that) makes science and religion equivalent? Cut the crap, it's incredibly tired.
OK, crap is cut. Still, while there are many who tout evolution, relatively few attempt to address the genesis of life itself. It's not so simple as you might think. What came first? The cell? DNA? Amino Acids? Not so simple at all. In fact, they are extremely complex and very well "designed".
Also, there is evidence of creation/design all around us. People just refuse to believe it's designed because that would mean... *GASP*... a higher power had a hand in it. It might surprise you to know that many scientists have come to believe in a God. They just don't advertise it because it's not so good for the career.
Actually, abiogenesis is an active field of research where many advances are being made. While it isn't completely understood yet, it has yet to show anything that requires a designer. And while you claim that there is design all around us, doesn't make it so. Just saying that it looks designed doesn't mean it is - you have to demonstrate it. Scientists are working to explain how this stuff could come about without design.
As for your claim about many scientists believing in God... so what? Many doctors and nurses smoke... doesn't mean it's healthy.
We can beleive a skull found from Lucy, thats millions of years old from some monkey and claim its a link to humasn yet we cant accept that intelligent design exists. There is no step-by-step diagrams of year after year progression of macroevolution, just leaps by 10s of thousands of years worth of gaps and wait for it...must BELEIVE that this all true by some man who went digging with a shovel and started spouting similarities. Micro-evolution. Cool I get it, adaptibility in bacteria we see...cool got it. Macro evolution. Way too many gaps. Until I can see EVERY step of EVRY human skeletoon found from those periods...there will be doubt about the evolution religion.
The "creationist" view has been debunked. It's an attempt to wrap a "scientific view" around religion. Pathetic. People like you think it had to be "designed" by a deity, which in fact it hasn't.
That field of study is called Abiogenesis. An no it is actively worked.
canowhoopass there are no gaps. You are just regurgitating what was feed to you from either a church or a religious website. So instead of accepting observable physical identifiable evidence you turn to the supernatural for the answer that will never provide one single shread of evidence. But hey you need physical evidence for every step. What a joke.
Then please.....proceed to show me. I have read multitudes of science books, there are gaps...prove me wrong.
Touché! Nice one.
Please don't get me wrong. I love science (Majored in physics with minor in mathematics many many years ago). I love biology, chemistry, astronomy, etc... I love new discovery’s that shed light on the universe around us. So, I hope no one thinks I'm against science. I'm not against it, I'm all for it. But, I have to admit, the more I learn the more I am convinced that there must be a creator.
@ Greg - Actually, there are gaps. If I remember correctly, the Cambrian explosion is where most of them are. Adaptation is one thing, but the huge jumps in body types is another, not to mention the sudden "explosion" of new species with no primative ancestor. There are gaps in the fossil record.
Greg - the gaps canwhoopass demands are a complete history of every living thing back to the beginning of life. He thinks if he makes it entirely impossible to completely demonstrate evolution with 100% clarity, then he is rational in not accepting it and making up anything he wants to believe. What he doesn't understand is that even if there was absolutely no fossil record ever found, the DNA record of life is overwhelming on its own to demonstrate common descent.
Google Evolution misconceptions. That would be a good start.
@ elentir - In architectural design, and even in software, there is a concept of design patterns. Think of a design pattern as a solution to a common problem. The commonality of life on Earth could be attributed to design patterns. DNA is an extremely efficient mechanism for storing information. Why wouldn't it be a fundamental design pattern of life?
DNA isn't extremely efficient. It is actually very inefficient. That is why so much of it is non-coding. And don't start in about the arguments of junk DNA not being truly junk. While some parts of non-coding DNA do have other uses, a lot of DNA is truly junk. Some DNA is even deleterious. Hence genetic diseases and birth defects. If DNA were designed, then the designer screwed up a lot, wasted a lot of space, and was overly sloppy about it.
yes... but where does the sperm come from??
Nomenclature, your comments strike me as ignorance (not to be taken wrong). Do some research on Evolution, and Abiogenesis. I really think you will discover how off you are on your thinking. The supernatural is not the answer for anything.
You're right; there are genetic diseases, birth defects, etc... That is caused by defective DNA. The Bible actually explains this as our being imperfect and alienated from God.
As to wasted space, I think not. A single strand of DNA is over 6 feet long and could be compared to a book with about three billion "letters" (A, C, G, and T). According to the Human Genome Project, if it were transcribed onto paper, the book would fill 200 volumes the size of a 1,000 page telephone book. Yet, it fits neatly into the tiny little nucleus of a cell. Sounds pretty amazing to me.
@Greg. No worries, I am ignorant of a lot of things for sure. I wish we were all having this conversation under different circumstances (a Steak dinner and beer come to mind). I'm always happy to talk about this stuff as long as it stays civil.
I'm signing off for now as I have somewhere I have to be. Goodnight all.
Later.
So your argument is - it's really small and there's a bunch there - so GOD!?! You said nothing though about how much of that 6 feet of DNA actually is used. Only 1.44 inches of that 6 ft of DNA is coding. I'm not sure what your definition of waste is, but to me, that's a lot of wasted space.
Goodnight
Alas, my time to go home as well...to be continued in the tavern..
I wonder if is related to poison ivey or nightshade or bamboo or tulips or oops sorry i thought it said plants
never mind...
and then there were 10
omg, you mean Darwin was right?
WJB would not be happy
I'm not sure what planet formation has to do with Darwin.
wonder how long it will be before we see life on this planet?
I'm still waiting for us to find Coruscant or Dagobah. I want to visit the Jedi Temple or contemplate my existence by taking the trials on Dagobah under the instructions of Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker.
must. exploit. for... resources!!!
I will Boldly go there and see what's going on.
And cause a mess if at all possible.
Beam me up Scotty.
There's no intelligent life down here.
Roadkill it's 335 light years away.
Okay Creationists, begin spinning this story....... Now! I'm sure those children being home schooled by their zealous parents will never hear about this.
i wonder if it will go full term ..........
or less than the normal 9 months
'in the beginning ..........'
Very exciting that we may be able to witness the birth of a new planet. Hopefully the funding exists, in the country or elsewhere, to continue to monitor these events.
Very cool discovery!
May be the new Heaven and new Earth being formed for God's people. What a great thought. Blessed is theman who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord - Jeremiah 17:17. That's my hope and my belief.
If we spent half as much time and money focusing here on Earth and fixing us we would be much better off. Why are we so focused on space when nothing is going good here? These funds and resources are going into far away galaxies that we can't even touch and in the middle of all of this we are not able to touch our own culture? We will die before we even touch these planets! We are losing control of every aspect of us but ....hey lets focus on anything but here! Lets pump money into space and just let our kids continue to kill each other and watch earth fall apart at the seams!!
Because we could potentially learn something out in space that could help us here on earth. The same reason we invest in any scientific research. Not all discoveries and technology that have benefited mankind came from direct scientific research. Many were stumbled across by accident. Some examples are rubber, radiation, penicillin & plastic. But, had the scientists not been looking in the first place, they may not have ever made those advances. Learning how things work allows us to gain control, not lose it. And while you may not be able to see the benefits, doesn't mean they don't exist and others aren't capable of finding them.
Well said elentir.
Ivan <<< <<< >>> >>> ALL of the money which is spent on all of the space programs is spent DOWN HERE ON EARTH. <<< <<< >>> >>> NONE of it goes "out there."
Planet X.... They are coming back to get us.
Pardon me if this is a stupid question but does this mean that it actually occured 335 years ago? Or are we able to see that distance?
The picture depicts what the system looked like 335 years ago.
yeah jimreaper, that is a stupid question.
Thanks Joe. So I'm sure that I can count on you for the answer.
NO! Killer Joe !!! That is not a stupid question. Only a stupid answer.
Yeah Joe, being the brainiac that you seem to think you are, it looks like you've got a history of ultra-intelligent comments.
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lmao! well done jimreaper. Nothing like throwing a troll's comments back at him. ;)
I would just like to point out that the article exaggerates what scientists actually witnessed and are witnessing. Scientists did not observe the "birth of a planet" as most people commenting here are thinking of it. While this news is exciting to scientists and will help in the understanding of the universe, it is important to not overstate the facts and to relay what was actually observed.
The scientists saw "a faint blob embedded in a thick disk of gas and dust around the young star" which to us and them, is more or less a static picture that they think may be the initial stages of planet formation. The scientists did not witness a planet, coalescing out of the gas and dust, becoming a full fledged round sphere of a planet. That event would last for millions of years, relative to geologic time, not a human's lifetime.
What the scientist observed may be a snapshot of a planet's birth, but not the entire birth of a planet because that would take anywhere from 2.5 to 8 million years (reference: http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/688/2/L99/fulltext/ from The Astrophysical Journal 688 (2008) L99).
The reason I comment here is just to point out this fact, to combat the scientific illiteracy spread by reporters to the general public in an attempt to dumb down the science enough for the lay person to read, and to set the record straight about what scientists actually observed compared to what the article suggested they observed.
I hear there is no end to space yet this planet seems to be forming at the very end of it. I see only a couple of stars and then absolute darkness. It's kind of scary to think of that planet forming at the fringes of space all alone.
Actually, it's not that far away at all. It's in our own Galaxy.
We may soon be watching the death of one our own sister planets:
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17107085-comet-just-might-hit-mars-in-2014?lite
This comet is so big and traveling so fast it's a planet killer. At 30 miles with 126,000 mph velocity it would be over 20 billion megatons of explosive force upon impact and quite possibly split the planet into another asteroid belt.
It's impact force will be 100 times larger than the Shoemaker 9 comet (the largest one at 9.3 miles) which caused an Earth sized impact on Jupiter.
It's 400 times larger the the Comet that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That left an 180 miles crater and this one would leave a crater measured in thousands of miles and tens of miles deep.
The robotic craft already there would get a good display but would probably be buried under dozens of feet of dust after the impact.
This will be the event of the EON if it hits and with only 74 days of data we don't know precisely yet if it will hit but we know it will come as close as 63,000 miles already. More data will let us know if this is going to be the end of Mars as we know it and possibly life on Earth. That's because the Earth could very likely be in the path of a humongous Martion Metor swarm as it swings around the Sun and gets hit head on by a tens of thousands of small meteors from dust size to nasty size (100 feet and up).
We just don't know yet but it could be quite the marvelous display and visible in broad daylight from the southern hemipshere.