00:00Astronomers capture the first moments of a planet's formation.
00:04By Gizmodo.
00:06In a recent article in the journal Nature, astronomers revealed the discovery of a protostar,
00:11a star still in its early stages of formation, the OPS 315, which offers a
00:17unprecedented insight into how our own solar system may have formed.
00:22Located about 1,300 light-years away, this young star, which resembles our own
00:27Sun, is surrounded by a mixture of hot minerals and silicon monoxide gas, forming
00:33an environment remarkably similar to that of our own solar system in its stages
00:38initials.
00:39For astronomer Melissa M.
00:41Secluri, lead author of the study, the most fascinating feature of OPS 315 is its protoplanetary disk.
00:48The chaotic region around a newborn star where planets come to life.
00:53Although astronomers have observed hundreds of disks like this, none of them
00:58was as young, dense, and full of compounds essential for planet formation as
01:04what surrounds OPS 315.
01:07MC Cluri's team sifted through data from nearly 3,000 protostars collected by the telescope
01:12Spitzer spacecraft.
01:13Many of them were very old, one or five million years old, or were hidden by
01:19dense molecular clouds that blocked the view of its interior.
01:23Of the thousands of stars examined, OPS 315 stood out.
01:28Approximately 100,000 years old, a baby from a spatial point of view.
01:32It is positioned at an angle that allowed researchers to get a rare view beyond
01:36of its thick gas barrier.
01:38Using a combination of the James Webb Space Telescope or JWST and the Atacama Large Millimeter Telescope,
01:45Submillimeter Sand and UALMA.
01:47They detected chemical signatures of compounds directly linked to the initial formation
01:52of planets.
01:53One of these compounds, silicon monoxide, was the decisive proof that interstellar grains
01:58were clumping together to form planets.
02:01The presence of hot minerals in the same region confirmed what astronomers were witnessing
02:06the initial moment of the formation of a solar system.
02:10MC Cluri emphasized that OPS 315, in terms of mass and age, is an almost perfect analogue
02:16to what our Sun would have been like in its youth, which makes it an ideal candidate to study
02:21the origins of our own cosmic home.
02:24The discovery also opens an unprecedented opportunity to study planetesimals,
02:29the small cosmic fragments that come together to form the solid part of the planets.
02:34Due to its ephemeral and small nature, astronomers could only trace the formation
02:39of planetesimals indirectly, by analyzing meteorite samples.
02:44With OPS 315, this reality changed.
02:47We are actually seeing these planetesimals actively forming, he said, according to Gismodo
02:52MC Cluri.
02:53The team now plans to further investigate these signals, many of which do not match
02:59exactly the predictions of the theoretical models.
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