Scientists may just have witnessed birth of two planets

Scientists have discovered two shadows in a disk of gas and dust surrounding a star TW Hydrae — nearly two hundred light years away from Earth —  and believe that two planets are in the making, said Nasa on its website.

The scientists present it as evidence of two under-construction planets.

The research published in the Astrophysical Journal reveals how Earth and other planets in the solar system may have looked when they were forming about 4.6 billion years ago.

TW Hydraw — also called red dwarf — is less than 10 million years old, according to Nasa. These are the most common type of stars and are the smallest in the milky way.

The data was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and was analysed by researchers.

According to Nasa, the first shadow was spotted in observations from 2016 while the second shadow was identified 5 years later, confusing scientists.

The lead author of the research Dr John Debes said: “We found out that the shadow had done something completely different.”

Dr Debes, who is also an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in the US, said: “When I first looked at the data, I thought something had gone wrong with the observation because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I was flummoxed at first, and all my collaborators were like: what is going on?”

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“We really had to scratch our heads and it took us a while to actually figure out an explanation,” he said.

Researchers have estimated that the shadows are formed by the two misaligned disks inclined about five to seven degrees relative to the plane of the outer disk. This misalignment is thought to be due to the gravitational force of the two planets.

The lead author noted: “It does suggest that the two planets have to be fairly close to each other. If one was moving much faster than the other, this would have been noticed in earlier observations.”

“It’s like two race cars that are close to each other, but one slowly overtakes and laps the other,” added Dr Debes.

Researchers also maintained that planets in the solar system also have orbital planes that vary in tilt by a few degrees from each other.

They further stated that the TW Hydrae gives astronomers a ringside seat to how our solar system may have looked during its formative years.

The scientists believed that the suspected planets are located in a region roughly the distance of Jupiter from the Sun and the shadows complete one rotation around the star about every 15 years.

“This is right in line with typical solar system-style architecture,” said Dr Debes.

The investigators went on to say that the outer disk also has a curious gap at twice Pluto’s average distance from the Sun, which may be possible evidence of a third planet in the star system.

However any inner planets would be difficult to detect because their light would be lost in the glare of the star and the surrounding dust would dim their reflected light, stated the researchers.