(ORDO NEWS) — A team of scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photographed the formation of a Jupiter -like planet . Such a “hard and intense process” leading to the appearance of a gas giant is called “disk instability”.
During this process—instead of seeing a planet grow from a small, matter-accumulating core—the protoplanetary disk around the star cools, and gravity causes it to disintegrate into one or more fragments of planetary mass.
The emerging world is encased in a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust with a distinct spiral structure orbiting a young star estimated to be two million years old. Our Sun was about the same age when the planets of the solar system began to form.
The protoplanet, dubbed AB Aurigae b, is about nine times as massive as Jupiter and orbits its star at a whopping distance of about 13.84 billion kilometers – more than twice as far as Pluto is from our Sun (average distance of 5.9 billion kilometers) .
Studying the early stages of the formation of planets like Jupiter gives astronomers more information about the history of our solar system.
The discovery of AB Aurigae b paves the way for future research into the chemistry of protoplanetary disks and the discovery of new worlds.
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