For the first time…a rotating disk of a newborn star has been observed in another galaxy
Researchers announced today, Wednesday, that they have observed a disk around a star larger and brighter than the Sun located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest neighboring galaxies.
Astronomers have never observed newborn stars with these disks except in our Milky Way Galaxy, according to Reuters. Our Sun and stars are formed when a dense mass of interstellar gas and dust collapses under its own gravity.
Once a star is born at the center of such a cloud, the remaining material forms a rotating disk around it that fuels star growth and often gives rise to planets.
The star being discovered is about 10 to 20 times more massive than the sun, and perhaps 10,000 times brighter.
When the matter is attracted by gravity towards the forming star, it flattens to form a rotating disk. The diameter of the newly observed disk is about 12,000 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, that is, approximately 10 times larger than the disk that surrounded the Sun when it formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The star, which also releases a large jet of material into space, is located about 160,000 light-years from Earth.
