Moon-forming orbital rings visible beyond our solar system | BantenNews.co.id

Scientists are looking at the formation of moons outside our solar system. The planet is very similar to Jupiter which is surrounded by a fairly large disk of gas and dust.

The researchers used the ALMA observatory in Chile’s Atacama desert to detect a rotating disk accumulating around one of two new planets named PDS 70, which lies about 370 light-years from Earth. One light year is about 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

This is called the circumplanetary disk, and it is from here that the moons are born. The discovery, the researchers say, offers a deeper understanding of the formation of planets and moons.

More than 4,400 planets have been discovered outside our solar system, called exoplanets. No circumplanetary disks have been discovered to date as all known exoplanets in the fully-developed solar system, except for the two gas planets PDS 70.

“This observation is unique – so far – and long awaited, for testing theories of planetary formation and observing firsthand the birth of planets and their satellites,” said astronomer Myriam Benisty of the University of Grenoble.

The orange star PDS 70, roughly the same mass as our sun, is about 5 million years old. These two planets are even younger.

These two planets are similar (though larger) to Jupiter, the gas giant planet that is the largest planet in our solar system. Around one of the two planets, called PDS 70c, a moon-forming disk is observed. Researchers have previously found early evidence of a disk around the planet.
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