Astronomers might have notice an ice planet forming around TW Hydrae , an orange dwarf star 176 light - class from Earth . Researchers looked at the system using the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA ) , which can appear at the nerveless dust grains that make up the planet - form disk .
In a series of observations to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and availableonline , the team has remark a organisation with a protoplanetary platter that is made of gas and rubble grains of different sizes . In the disk , there are five gaps , in which some of the larger junk grains are missing . In one of them , almost 50 pct of the enceinte dust cereal are not there .
That prominent gap is locate 3.3 billion kilometers ( 2 billion miles ) from the star , slightly further than Uranus is from the Sun . " merge with the orbit sizing and the brightness of TW Hydrae , the planet would be an icy giant satellite like Neptune , " said steer writer Takashi Tsukagoshi in astatement .
The organisation had already been spotted as a potentialplanet - forming cradle , but the new observations looked at differentiating between the different types of dust grains . When a planet is form , the declamatory dust grains are the first to go due to gravitational interaction and friction between the gas and dust . Thus , get a gap lacking dust grains is a unmortgaged indication that a planet might be forming there .
ALMA image of the planetary record of TW Hydrae . ALMA ( ESO / NAOJ / NRAO ) , Tsukagoshi et al .
The young observations also provide a more precise measurement of the larger gap , indicating the comportment of a planet up to 25 times the mass of Earth . But the author say that other less likely hypothesis could explain this funny opening .
The researchers are now planning further observation to better characterize the organisation . They trust to carefully study its gas content , which should give the researchers more constraint on the mass of the forming planet .
The discovery is truly a will to the power of ALMA . With its 66 antennas in the Atacama desert , the lookout station is provide a young look into the universe and , with these finding , we are one stair nearer to sympathise the line of different types of planets .
