‘Planetary Genesis’ Captured by ALMA

Images of the  Day:

‘Planet formation’ captured in ALMA image

HL Tauri (HL Tau), the infant star at the center, is about a million years old, and is 450 light years (140 pc) from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

The sun-like star is surrounded by vast rings of dust and gas, which will form planets, asteroids and comets, and is trailed by the Herbig-Haro object HH 151.

A new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array, located in northern Chile’s Atacama desert, is said to reveal for the first time ever extraordinarily fine details  in the planet-forming disc around a young star, said researchers at ALMA Observatory.

ALMA’s antennas are spaced up to 15 kilometers apart to provide new high-resolution capabilities, said to be a major leap in the understanding of how protoplanetary discs develop and how planets form.

Top: This is the sharpest image ever taken by ALMA — sharper than is routinely achieved in visible light with the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. These new ALMA observations reveal substructures within the disc that have never been seen before and even show the possible positions of planets forming in the dark patches within the system. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) | Download.  Middle: This is a composite image of the young star HL Tauri and its surroundings using data from ALMA (enlarged in box at upper right) and the Hubble Space Telescope (rest of the picture). This is the first ALMA image where the image sharpness exceeds that normally attained with Hubble. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/ESA | Download. Bottom: This image compares the size of the Solar System with HL Tauri and its surrounding protoplanetary disc. Although the star is much smaller than the Sun, the disc around HL Tauri stretches out to almost three times as far from the star as Neptune is from the Sun. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) | Download

“These features are almost certainly the result of young planet-like bodies that are being formed in the disc. This is surprising since such young stars are not expected to have large planetary bodies capable of producing the structures we see in this image,” said Stuartt Corder, ALMA Deputy Director.

“When we first saw this image we were astounded at the spectacular level of detail. HL Tauri is no more than a million years old, yet already its disc appears to be full of forming planets. This one image alone will revolutionize theories of planet formation,” explained Catherine Vlahakis, ALMA Deputy Program Scientist and Lead Program Scientist for the ALMA Long Baseline Campaign. [Source and credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)]

More information posted HERE.

The lamb born with two heads dies

U2 [aka, Lambie, Two Face,] the New Zealand lamb born with two faces, has died of a brain bleed after 41 days in Southland, NZ.

Photo shows Two Face shortly after birth.  Image: Supplied by owner/ Via nzherald

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