Imagine you could go back and see the formation of our Solar System, the moment when the planets began to form around our young Sun.
Astronomers using the ALMA telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope have, for the first time, pinpointed the exact moment planets have begun to form around a star beyond our Sun.
More amazing science
These are observations of the first crumbs of planet-forming material; hot minerals beginning to solidify in orbit around a distant star.
It's the first time a distant planetary system has been identified so early in its formation and, what's more, gives us a glimpse into the history of our own Solar System.
Exploring the system
This record-breaking newborn planetary system is beginning to form around HOPS-315, a baby star – known as a 'proto star' – 1,300 lightyears from Earth.
Stars come in all different shapes and sizes, but this one happens to be very similar to what our young Sun must have been like.
Astronomers have seen protoplanetary discs around stars before, discs of dust and gas out of which planets may eventually form.
They've even been able to see young discs around stars containing massive Jupiter-like planets.
But, says Melissa McClure, professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the new study published in Nature, "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our Sun.
"We've always known that the first solid parts of planets, or ‘planetesimals’, must form further back in time, at earlier stages."
Co-author Merel van ‘t Hoff, a professor at Purdue University, USA, compares their findings to "a picture of the baby Solar System", saying “we're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form."
A glimpse into our Solar System's birth
Astronomers can learn a lot about the formation of our Solar System by studying space rocks like asteroids and meteorites.
These were the very first solid materials to condense near Earth’s present location around the Sun.
Therefore, age-dating these primordial rocks enables scientists to confirm when our Solar System began forming.
Meteorites are full of crystalline minerals containing silicon monoxide (SiO) and can condense at the extremely high temperatures present in young planetary discs.
ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al.
Eventually, these condensed solids join together, growing in size and mass and potentially becoming full-blown planets in orbit around a star.
This discovery is evidence of these hot minerals beginning to condense in the disc around HOPS-315.
Results show SiO is present around the baby star in its gaseous state, but also within crystalline minerals.
That suggests it's only just beginning to solidify. We're seeing the very first stages of a brand new planetary system forming around a distant star.
"This process has never been seen before in a protoplanetary disc — or anywhere outside our Solar System," says study co-author Edwin Bergin, a professor at the University of Michigan, USA.
Using our most powerful telescopes
The minerals were first identified by the James Webb Space Telescope, and the team then used ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, to find out where the chemical signals were coming from.
They determined the signals are from a small region of the disc around the star that's about the same distance as between our asteroid belt and our Sun.
“We're really seeing these minerals at the same location in this extrasolar system as where we see them in asteroids in the Solar System," says co-author Logan Francis, a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University.
HOPS-315 is a view into the past; a chance to see the what the very beginnings of our Solar System must have been like.
"This system is one of the best that we know to actually probe some of the processes that happened in our Solar System," says van ‘t Hoff.
