Since its launch into space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has not stopped sharing unprecedented images and discoveries.
And now JWST has done it again, opening a new chapter in our understanding of planetary formation. As? Well, capturing for the first time the gas dispersion in a planetary forming disk advanced.
The discovery was published in the Astronomical Journal and led by a team of researchers from the University of Arizona and the SETI Institute.
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Directed by Naman Bajaj from the University of Arizona and Dr. Uma Gorti from the SETI Institute, this study focused its analysis on the winds of the disk surrounding the star TChaactively dispersing its gas content over a radius of about 30 astronomical units.
This is the first time images of gas dispersing in a planet-forming disk have been detected, thanks to the detection of noble gases such as neon and argon.
Also, this was the first detection of [Ne II], indicating that these winds would originate in a large region of the disk.
According to Naman Bajaj, these winds could be driven by high energy stellar photons or by magnetic fields associated with the disk.
And therefore, this gas dispersion process would play a fundamental role in determining the composition and structure of planetary systems, including our own Solar System, which shows a predominance of rocky objects over those rich in gas.
In this context, the study addresses a fundamental question about the planetary formation process: the moment and way by which most of the gas leaves the disk surrounding the young star.
During planetary formation, the dust and gas particles They clump together to form planetesimals, which eventually give rise to planets. The amount of material available and the time it remains in the disk are determining factors in the type, size and location of the new planets.
A second study, led by Dr. Andrew Sellek of Leiden Observatory, complemented these observations with simulations suggesting that the gas dispersion driven by high-energy stellar photons could explain the observed data.
This theory, supported by the simultaneous detection of all four gas lines by the JWSTindicates that significant quantities of gas would be dispersed annually, equivalent to the mass of the Moon.
Basically, a new perspective on the process of planetary formation, opening paths to a better understanding of how and when systems are created throughout the universe.