It seems that an overarching theme for today’s show is figuring out how processes work over time: how the Sun’s activity has changed, how Earth’s plates have changed, how Mars’ glaciers have changed. And now, I bring you a story of how scientists have observed changes in the planet-forming disk of a young star to see where a planet is forming.

This new paper was published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics with lead author Jozsef Varga and discusses observations of the protoplanetary disk around HD 163296. At a distance similar to that of Mercury from the Sun, there is growing evidence for a vortex at the inner rim of the disk. Vortices such as this one are where astronomers have long suspected that planets form in a convergence of dust and small particles.

The team used a new instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer called MATISSE, which is another unwieldy backronym that stands for Multi AperTure mid-Infrared SpectroScopic Experiment. Seriously, folks. Stop letting us name things.

This paper is the MATISSE team’s first publication and is part of a Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) program that will study more systems like HD 163296. The director of the Max Planck Institutes for Astronomy and for Radioastronomy, Gerd Weigelt, noted: This first scientific result marks the starting point for further research. One of the goals is to study stars with dust disks and specifically those in which Earth-like planets can form.

This program is definitely one to watch. We’ll keep you updated as they publish more results.

More Information

MPIA press release

“The asymmetric inner disk of the Herbig Ae star HD 163296 in the eyes of VLTI/MATISSE: evidence for a vortex?“, J. Varga et al., to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics