Strange Gaps In Young Star’s Disk Could Indicate Baby Alien Worlds

Two gaps noticed in the gas disk surrounding a young star called HL Tauri could be the proof of newborn planets, a theory that could challenge the notion of planets needing millions of years to form, because the host star is only around a million years old. The evidence of the gaps being present was uncovered with the help of information gathered by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescopes.

ALMA Reveals Footprints of Baby Planets in a Gas Disk https://t.co/NZouiws53f pic.twitter.com/P24Vzk84IP

— ALMA Observatory (@almaobs) May 25, 2016

However, researchers did not immediately conclude that the gaps in the dusk disk were indeed newborn planets, rather they speculated that the gaps could indicate planets were forming in those positions, therefore the gaps were the footprints of infant planets. The researching team, comprising of members from Japan's Shigehisa Takakuwa at Kagoshima and China's Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, then concentrated on studying the gas distribution in the disk to understand its true nature.

As per reports, if the gaps were a result of the variations in dust properties, then no gaps would have been present as the variance would not directly impact the gas. At the same time, if the newborn planet's gravity would have created gaps in the dust disk then the occurrence would have led to the creation of gaps in the gas too.

The scientists used the unmatched sensitivity of ALMA to obtain the sharpest known image of HL Tauri's gas distribution, and saw that the photo revealed the presence of at least two gaps in the surrounding gas at astronomical unit distances if 28 and 69 radii. "To our surprise, these gaps in the gas overlap with the dust gaps. This supports the idea that the gaps are the footprints left by baby planets," said Yen Hsi-Wei, lead researcher. "Our results indicate that planets start to form much earlier than what we expected".