Alien Planet Photo, First Ever to Show Exoplanet Forming Taken by Very Large Telescope in Chile [PHOTO]
The very first every direct photograph of an alien plant forming around a nearby star is captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
The photo is the first of its kind, planet was forming next to Star HD 100546, already playing host to another large planet. Astronomers will be provided new insights into how planets, stars and galaxies came to be through this latest development.
"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," astronomer Sascha Quanz of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, leader of the research team, said in a statement. "If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage."
The new photo seems to follow how scientists led to believe that stars themselves are born in clouds of gas and dust, the remaining debris orbits the star and forms baby planets.
The photo and data gathered suggest the material around the planet-blob has been heated up supporting the planet-forming hypothesis.
"Exoplanet research is one of the most exciting new frontiers in astronomy, and direct imaging of planets is still a new field, greatly benefiting from recent improvements in instruments and data analysis methods," said Adam Amara, another member of the team. "In this research we used data analysis techniques developed for cosmological research, showing that cross-fertilization of ideas between fields can lead to extraordinary progress."
The findings can be read about online in Thursday's issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.