Scientists have observed a planet forming for the first time ever

For the first time, scientists have observed a planet being formed and have captured images of dust and gas particles accumulating together to make a protoplanet in a distant solar system.

Researchers from the US and Australia observed the phenomenon taking place in the solar system surrounding a star called LkCa 15, located 450 light-years away from Earth. Catching a planet in the making is an exciting first for astronomers because, of the nearly 2,000 exoplanets we’ve so far identified, none are in the process of formation.

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CrazyNeutrino said:

Scientists have observed a planet forming for the first time ever

For the first time, scientists have observed a planet being formed and have captured images of dust and gas particles accumulating together to make a protoplanet in a distant solar system.

Researchers from the US and Australia observed the phenomenon taking place in the solar system surrounding a star called LkCa 15, located 450 light-years away from Earth. Catching a planet in the making is an exciting first for astronomers because, of the nearly 2,000 exoplanets we’ve so far identified, none are in the process of formation.

more…

Astronomers would have thought such observations impossible, a few decades ago.

Bubblecar said:

Astronomers would have thought such observations impossible, a few decades ago.

Why’s that?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Bubblecar said:

Astronomers would have thought such observations impossible, a few decades ago.

Why’s that?

Separating the light of planets from stars wasn’t possible with the technology of the time, let alone protoplanets.

Bubblecar said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Bubblecar said:

Astronomers would have thought such observations impossible, a few decades ago.

Why’s that?

Separating the light of planets from stars wasn’t possible with the technology of the time, let alone protoplanets.

I would have expected most astronomers to envisage ever increasing advances in the science of telescopes.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Bubblecar said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why’s that?

Separating the light of planets from stars wasn’t possible with the technology of the time, let alone protoplanets.

I would have expected most astronomers to envisage ever increasing advances in the science of telescopes.

Maybe, but before the days CCD etc there would have been little clue as to how it could be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device

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Interesting.

CrazyNeutrino said:

Scientists have observed a planet forming for the first time ever

For the first time, scientists have observed a planet being formed and have captured images of dust and gas particles accumulating together to make a protoplanet in a distant solar system.

Researchers from the US and Australia observed the phenomenon taking place in the solar system surrounding a star called LkCa 15, located 450 light-years away from Earth. Catching a planet in the making is an exciting first for astronomers because, of the nearly 2,000 exoplanets we’ve so far identified, none are in the process of formation.

more…

> of the nearly 2,000 exoplanets we’ve so far identified, none are in the process of formation.

On the forum there was one exoplanet that, because of its very high temperature and great distance from its cold Sun, must have been exceedingly young, a few million years at most. Doesn’t that count as “in the process of formation”.

I can remember a science master back in the early fifties telling us that we would never be able to see another planet let alone one being formed.

bob(from black rock) said:

I can remember a science master back in the early fifties telling us that we would never be able to see another planet let alone one being formed.

That made perfect sense – back then. There was a chap who is extremely famous for finding planets that don’t exist. The method he used was to stare at the same star for extremely long periods of time with the same telescope to detect wobbles in star position. No-one could test his observations because no-one else had the telescope resources to ensure a perfectly stable observation platform for decades. When someone else finally did, he found that those planets didn’t exist.

Result – back to null.

The breakthrough came three ways.
1. No-one expected pulsars to have planets, but the first planets found were those orbiting pulsars.
2. No-one, before the advent of adaptive optics, had the resolution to directly see any planets in orbit (to give you some idea, it was only recently that anyone got a clear image of the white dwarf orbiting nearby star Procyon, and a white dwarf is enormously brighter than a planet).
3. No-one expected there to be large planets in extremely close orbits – both of which are needed to get transit observations over a short enough timescale to be observed by a space telescope such as Corot and Kepler.

To put it another way, if all solar systems were like ours, we still would not have ever found an extra-solar planet.