First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star


First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star

The Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO’s VLT) has taken the first image of a young, sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and until now astronomers have never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a sun-like star. Observations can help astronomers understand how planets formed and evolved around our own sun. Credit: European Southern Observatory

The Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO’s VLT) has taken the first image of a young, sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and until now astronomers have never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a sun-like star. Observations can help astronomers understand how planets formed and evolved around our own sun.


Just a few weeks ago, ESO revealed a planetary system that was born in a stunning new VLT image (www.eso.org/public/news/eso2008). Now, the same telescope, using the same instrument (www.eso.org/public/teles-instr… vlt / vlt-instr / sphere), has taken the first direct image of a planetary system around a star like our sun, Located about 300 light years away and known as TYC 8998-760-1.

“This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage in its evolution,” says Alexander Bohn, Ph.D. student at Leiden University in the Netherlands who led the new research published today in the Astrophysical charts.

“Although astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our galaxy, only a small fraction of these exoplanets have been directly photographed,” says co-author Matthew Kenworthy, an associate professor at Leiden University, adding that “the observations Direct are important in the search for environments that can support life. ” The direct image of two or more exoplanets around the same star is even rarer; Only two such systems have been observed so far, both around stars markedly different from our sun. ESO’s new VLT image (www.eso.org/public/teles-instr… anal-observatory / vlt) is the first direct image of more than one exoplanet around a sun-like star. ESO’s VLT was also the first telescope to obtain direct images of an exoplanet, in 2004, when it captured a speck of light around a brown dwarf, a type of ‘failed’ star.

First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star

First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star. Credit: European Southern Observatory

“Our team has been able to take the first picture of two gas giant mates orbiting a young solar analog,” says Maddalena Reggiani, a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, who also participated in the study. The two planets can be seen in the new image as two bright spots of light distant from their parent star, which is located in the upper left corner of the frame. By taking different images at different times, the team was able to distinguish these planets from the background stars.

The two gas giants orbit their host star at distances of 160 and about 320 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. This places these planets much further from their star than Jupiter or Saturn, also two gas giants, are from the Sun; they are only five and 10 times the Earth-Sun distance, respectively. The team also found that the two exoplanets are much heavier than those in our solar system, the inner planet is 14 times the mass of Jupiter and the outer planet six times.

Bohn’s team envisioned this system during their search for young, giant planets around stars like our sun but much younger. The TYC 8998-760-1 star is only 17 million years old and found in the southern constellation Musca (The Fly). Bohn describes it as a “very young version of our own sun”.

First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star

This image, captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the star TYC 8998-760-1 accompanied by two giant exoplanets, TYC 8998-760-1b and TYC 8998-760-1c. This is the first time that astronomers have directly observed more than one planet in orbit around a sun-like star. The two planets are visible as two bright dots in the center (TYC 8998-760-1b) and at the bottom right (TYC 8998-760-1c) of the frame, indicated by arrows. Other bright spots, which are background stars, are also visible in the image. By taking different images at different times, the team was able to distinguish the planets from the background stars. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young sun-like star (top left of center) using a coronagraph, which allows the weakest planets to be detected. The bright and dark rings we see in the star image are optical artifacts. Credit: ESO / Bohn et al.

These images were made possible thanks to the high performance of the SPHERE instrument (www.eso.org/public/teles-instr… vlt / vlt-instr / sphere) at the ESO VLT in the Chilean Atacama Desert. SPHERE blocks bright light from the star using a device called a coronagraph (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronagraph), allowing much fainter planets to be seen. While older planets, like those in our solar system, are too cold to be found with this technique, younger planets are hotter and glow more in infrared light. By taking multiple images over the past year, and using older data dating back to 2017, the research team confirmed that the two planets are part of the star system.

New observations of this system, even with the future ESO Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will allow astronomers to test whether these planets formed at their current location distant from the star or whether they migrated from another location. ESO’s ELT will also help investigate the interaction between two young planets in the same system. Bohn concludes: “The possibility that future instruments, such as those available in the ELT, can detect even lower-mass planets around this star mark an important milestone in understanding the systems of various planets, with possible implications for history. of our planet, our own solar system. ”


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More information:
Two giant wide-orbiting planets with direct images around the young, solar analog TYC 8998-760-1, Astrophysical charts. doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aba27e

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