(ORDO NEWS) — ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured images of a forming exoplanet in the HD 169142 star system.
The HD 169142 system is located 350 light-years from Earth towards the constellation Taurus. The age of its star does not exceed seven million years, that is, it is a fairly young star.
HD 169142 is surrounded by a massive disk of gas and dust.
A couple of years ago, the ALMA radio telescope discovered a gap in the disk around HD 169142. Then astronomers suspected that it was associated with the presence of an emerging exoplanet.
In the course of new observations, in which the Very Large Telescope was used, the researchers were able to confirm this theory.
After analyzing the images taken by the SPHERE spectrograph, scientists have discovered a protoplanetary disk, an emerging gas giant located at a distance of 37 astronomical units from the star (that is, beyond the orbit of Pluto relative to the Sun).
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