The European southern Observatory (ESO) reports that astronomers were able to carry out unique observations of complex dynamic processes taking place in young planetary systems.
Today it is known that planets are formed from the extended gas and dust disk surrounding a newborn star, a so — called protoplanetary disks. Their sizes can reach billions of kilometers. Particles of matter that make up the disks that face each other, stick together and eventually grow into a body of planetary size. Alas, the fine details of the evolution of the disks remain a mystery.
New observations were carried out on the Very Large Telescope of ESO using the receiver SPHERE. This tool includes a modern adaptive optics system that corrects atmospheric distortions, a coronagraph to mask out the greater part of the radiation of the Central star and the combined device differential imaging and polarimetry, which allows you to select the radiation of separate parts of the disk.
Observations give an idea about how newborn planets influence the shape of the generating disks. So, around a young RXJ1615 lights, located in the constellation Scorpius at a distance of about 600 light years from us, discovered a complex system of concentric rings (the first image) to form a structure similar to enlarged to giant size, the rings of Saturn.
In addition, we conducted observations of the protoplanetary disk around the star HD135344B at a distance of 450 light-years from Earth. It is clearly visible spiral arms (second photo), which, apparently, formed by two massive protoplanetary.
Further research is expected to help establish a link between such structures and the resulting planets.
