Scientists Take Advantage of Rare Celestial Opportunity

Scott Bullock

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Scientists Take Advantage of Rare Celestial Opportunity

A young star 350 light-years away may be in the process of birthing a planet, though it could just be gas.

Scientists have always had theories as to how planets are formed, but soon they will finally be able to see first hand exactly how it happens.

About 350 light-years away from us a young star, T Chamaeleontis, may be feeling a contraction or two as a planet forms in the midst of the star's protoplanetary disc, a huge band of dust, gas, and debris that orbits the star. As the material in the disc begins to build up in spots, increased gravity draws even more material towards these clumps of space stuff until all the material in the disc is locked up in planets, comets, and asteroids.

John Olofsson of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Hamburg (and one of the lead authors of papers describing what's going on with the star) said of the work, "Earlier studies had shown that [T Chamaeleontis] was an excellent target for studying how planetary systems form, but this star is quite distant and the full power of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) was needed to resolve very fine details and see what is going on in the dust disc."

When the 4 component telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (scientists are amazingly uncreative namers) were aimed at the star and it's protoplanetary disc, it was discovered that there was a gap between an inner and outer portion of the disc, hinting that something has been digging its way through, collecting the matter in that orbit.

"For us the gap in the dust disc around T Cha was a smoking gun," said Nuria Huélamo of the Centro de Astrobiología, "and we asked ourselves: could we be witnessing a companion digging a gap inside its protoplanetary disc?"

Further viewing of the star with special optics attached to the telescope revealed that there is an object much smaller and dimmer than T Chamaeleontis orbiting it about as far from it as Jupiter is from the Sun. Further analysis and viewing may tell us whether it is a planet or a brown dwarf, a big wad of gas that wishes it could be a star. Either way, science is awesome.

Source: Kotaku [http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1106/]

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interspark

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just think, all this the scientists are monitering actually happened 350 years ago! there could be other races, 250 light years between here and there who are all, "dude! you're still interested in that junk!? we were watching that like 100 years ago man!"
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Actually, we're about 350 years late to the party. What we're seeing is what already happened 350 years ago, since the light takes that long to get here.

/smartass

Still though, that looks really sweet. And I'll be keeping my eye on this one.
 

Bon_Clay

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Did anyone else interpret "may be in the process of birthing a planet, though it could just be gas" as a toilet humor joke? Good show if that was the intention.
 

therandombear

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not the Very Large Telescope!...Sounds like a joke from a Mel Brooks movie xD
Bon_Clay said:
Did anyone else interpret "may be in the process of birthing a planet, though it could just be gas" as a toilet humor joke? Good show if that was the intention.
Yes...I did too interpret it as a toilet humour joke...so if it wasn't intentionaly atleast others joined you in this laughing matter...hehe
 

gphjr14

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Bon_Clay said:
Did anyone else interpret "may be in the process of birthing a planet, though it could just be gas" as a toilet humor joke? Good show if that was the intention.
That's how I read it.

Overall I can't bring myself to care a whole lot about stuff like this because as previously stated it took 350 years just for that to reach us I just can't care much for something I'll never see nor will my great great great grandchildren.
 

Stammer

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lol yeah it was a very well-placed joke.

I love this kind of astronomical science.
 

Liiizard

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Very cool. Silly joke aside, this is an excellent opportunity to learn about the way our own solar system formed. Too bad millions of idiots will continue to believe that the stars are angels and the universe consists only of this solar system and formed 10,000 years ago in its present form.
 

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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Watching that video, while reading the article somehow reminded of this song.
Try to read the news while hearing this track and put that video in a loop and it's an interesting read.
 

pyroghast

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i was going to point out that what we are seeing happend 350 years ago but some other people pointed that out so.....

FOR SCIENCE!!!!!!!!111111oneoneone!
 

hansari

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I hope they record a timelapse of the event they are viewing if it does indeed turnout promising.
 

Beryl77

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I really love stuff like this. I think it's really interesting and agreed that science is awesome but "Very Large Telescope"? Are they serious? A five year old could come up with a much better name.
Oh well, yay science.
 

DustinLiang

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Witty Name Here said:
For some reason, when I read the title "Scientists Take Advantage of Rare Celestial Opportunity" I thought of some dark cult summoning C'thulu now that the stars were aligned >.>


Anyways, back OT: That's pretty cool, might be exciting to see it happen firsthand.
Siily poster, scientists don't need to summon C'thulu; they're building him from the ground up.

It doesn't matter if this is 350 years old data; planet formation takes millions of years anyways.
 

coil

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Scott, that opening line was the best thing I've read on the Internet all week. Superb.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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I claim this new planet and all the riches it will hold, when it finishes forming in 100 million years. And now I play the waiting game.

If they could build bigger and more powerful telescopes, they could "jump ahead" to see the planet develop faster.
 

Thaluikhain

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Actually, o we know for sure that this happened 350 years ago?

The article said it was happening now...maybe the scientists are just very patient?
 

Scott Bullock

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coil said:
Scott, that opening line was the best thing I've read on the Internet all week. Superb.
Thanks. I had no idea that joke would go over quite so well. (Memo to me: more thinly veiled low-brow toilet humor)