All posts tagged: protoplanetary disk

Nitrogen in 3I/ATLAS reveals an extremely cold birthplace beyond the solar system

Nitrogen in 3I/ATLAS reveals an extremely cold birthplace beyond the solar system

Published by Jenni Sidey

Astronomers detected five ion species simultaneously in the plasma tail of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, including ionized molecular nitrogen, using the WEAVE instrument on the William Herschel Telescope. The unusually strong nitrogen signature relative to carbon monoxide points to formation at temperatures of roughly 30 kelvins or below, suggesting the comet assembled in the frigid outer reaches of another planetary system. Measurements along the tail also showed that most ion ratios remained stable over the observed distances, while CH+ appeared to decrease slightly, offering an unusually detailed look at plasma chemistry in an interstellar comet. The third known object to enter our solar system from interstellar space appears to have been born in an environment far colder than the region where many familiar comets formed. Astronomers studying 3I/ATLAS detected an unusually strong signature of molecular nitrogen in its plasma tail, alongside four other ionized species. The chemical mixture points toward formation in temperatures around 30 kelvins or lower, roughly minus 243 degrees Celsius. “This object gives us a rare chance to study material that formed somewhere …

New computer simulation reveals exactly how gas giants form

New computer simulation reveals exactly how gas giants form

Published by Jenni Sidey

New simulations suggest gas giants can build roughly 10-Earth-mass solid cores in about 200,000 years when icy pebbles drifting inward from the outer disk grow into planetesimals before being swept up by embryos. Instead of relying mainly on inefficient direct pebble capture, the process concentrates solid material between roughly 6 and 9 astronomical units, where relatively small planetesimals can feed planetary cores rapidly. The model offers a possible solution to the long-standing problem of forming Jupiter-like planets before their gas disks disappear or their growing cores migrate too close to their stars. Building something as massive as Jupiter presents planetary scientists with a timing problem. A giant planet must assemble a large solid core while plenty of hydrogen and helium still surrounds its young star, yet conventional planet-building processes can take too long. Computer simulations now suggest a possible shortcut. Icy particles born far from a young star can drift inward, collide and grow into larger bodies that pile up in a relatively narrow region of the protoplanetary disk. Planetary embryos there can then consume …

Astronomers spot signs of comets transporting water to a young solar system PDS 70

Astronomers spot signs of comets transporting water to a young solar system PDS 70

Published by Jenni Sidey

Fast-changing sodium gas around the 5.4-million-year-old star PDS 70 provides evidence that icy exocomets may be plunging into the young system’s inner regions. Computer simulations show that giant planets could scatter planetesimals inward from beyond 54 astronomical units, potentially carrying water and other volatile materials toward forming rocky worlds. The exocomet interpretation remains unconfirmed, but if verified, PDS 70 would be the youngest planetary system known to show this kind of comet activity. A young planetary system 370 light-years away may be showing astronomers something remarkably familiar: icy comets carrying water toward the region where rocky planets could eventually emerge. Astronomers at Lund University in Sweden have found fast-changing clouds of sodium gas around PDS 70, a 5.4-million-year-old star already famous for its actively forming planets. The signals behave much like material released by comets passing close to a star, raising the possibility that frozen bodies from the system’s distant outskirts are being hurled inward. The findings, published in Nature Communications, offer a possible explanation for water vapor previously detected close to the star. The …

Mysterious dust ring beyond Jupiter formed many of our Solar System’s earliest worlds

Mysterious dust ring beyond Jupiter formed many of our Solar System’s earliest worlds

Published by Jenni Sidey

In the young Solar System, a dust trap beyond Jupiter may have built wildly different meteorite parent bodies over two million years. New simulations suggest the same ring-shaped region sorted and recycled material by time, helping explain why carbonaceous chondrites differ so sharply. When Jupiter finished clearing out its neighborhood, it may have done more than carve a gap in the young Solar System. Just beyond that gap, according to new simulations, a ring of dust and gas became one of the most productive nurseries for early planetary building blocks, and one of the most versatile. The new work argues that this region outside Jupiter’s orbit did not produce just one kind of planetesimal. Over roughly two million years, it may have generated several distinct families, each with different mixtures of fine-grained dust and tougher, heat-processed solids. Those differences matter because many meteorites that land on Earth are fragments of these long-lost bodies, preserving a record of how the Solar System assembled itself. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany …

Ancient impact with Theia may have brought water and life to Earth

Ancient impact with Theia may have brought water and life to Earth

Published by Jenni Sidey

Earth’s story may have hardened into place almost as soon as the Solar System began. That is the striking claim in new research tracing when the young planet locked in the chemical makeup that still defines it. According to the analysis, proto-Earth appears to have reached that point no later than about 3 million years after the first solids formed in the Solar System, an eye blink in planetary terms. Yet that early world was probably nothing like the one you know now. It was likely dry, depleted in volatile elements, and missing much of what life would later need. The work points to a two-stage history. First came a fast chemical settling of the material that built Earth’s main body. Much later, a giant impact may have supplied the water and other volatile ingredients that made the planet habitable. The result shifts the timing. It also changes the mood of Earth’s origin story. ε53Cr evolution of CCs and their intersection ages (model ages) with the bulk Solar System. (CREDIT: Science Advances) Instead of a …

Asteroid Ryugu fragments carry a magnetic record from the birth of the solar system

Asteroid Ryugu fragments carry a magnetic record from the birth of the solar system

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small, round piece of asteroid Ryugu (sample #91), called “S-lunar,” contains tiny particles (less than 1 mm) that will allow planetary scientists to study the magnetic signature of the early solar system. Using advanced magnetic techniques, the research team had previously detected several faint but measurable magnetic signatures emanating from the S-lunar particle. These features were present when the solar system was forming. The research team now provides more evidence to support the previously established hypothesis that the S-lunar particles contain the original magnetization caused by the fields present at the time of the solar nebula’s formation. They also demonstrate that many S-lunar particles have been impacted by the same natural remanent magnetization (NRM) mechanism. “Our sensitive magnetic measurements on these microsamples allowed us to clarify and reconcile the various interpretations of the experimental data previously reported by other research groups,” Sato said. “These data represent valuable evidence toward understanding how the early solar system evolved.” Interpretation of magnetic measurements. (a) Typical coercivity ranges of magnetic minerals for coarse grained magnetite, framboidal magnetite, and …