{"id":67717,"date":"2025-07-16T17:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67717\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T17:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:27:09","slug":"cosmic-first-scientists-spy-the-birth-of-planets-outside-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67717\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosmic first: Scientists spy the birth of planets outside solar system"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming<\/a> in the gas around a baby sun-like star<\/a>, providing a precious peek into the dawn of our own solar system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unprecedented snapshot of \u201ctime zero,\u201d scientists reported Wednesday, when new worlds<\/a> begin to gel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve captured a direct glimpse of the hot region where rocky planets like Earth are born around young protostars,\u201d said Leiden Observatory\u2019s Melissa McClure from the Netherlands, who led the international research team. \u201cFor the first time, we can conclusively say that the first steps of planet formation<\/a> are happening right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The observations offer a unique glimpse into the inner workings of an emerging planetary system, said the University of Chicago\u2019s Fred Ciesla, who was not involved in the study appearing in the journal Nature. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the things we\u2019ve been waiting for. Astronomers have been thinking about how planetary systems form for a long period of time,\u201d Ciesla said. \u201cThere\u2019s a rich opportunity here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory in Chile teamed up to unveil these early nuggets of planetary formation around the young star known as HOPS-315. It\u2019s a yellow dwarf in the making like the sun, yet much younger at 100,000 to 200,000 years old and some 1,370 light-years away. A single light-year is 6 trillion miles.<\/p>\n

In a cosmic first, McClure and her team stared deep into the gas disk around the baby star and detected solid specks condensing \u2014 signs of early planet formation. A gap in the outer part of the disk gave allowed them to gaze inside, thanks to the way the star tilts toward Earth.<\/p>\n

They detected silicon monoxide gas as well as crystalline silicate minerals, the ingredients for what\u2019s believed to be the first solid materials to form in our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. The action is unfolding in a location comparable to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter containing the leftover building blocks of our solar system\u2019s planets.<\/p>\n

The condensing of hot minerals was never detected before around other young stars, \u201cso we didn\u2019t know if it was a universal feature of planet formation or a weird feature of our solar system,\u201d McClure said in an email. \u201cOur study shows that it could be a common process during the earliest stage of planet formation.\u201d<\/p>\n

While other research has looked at younger gas disks and, more commonly, mature disks with potential planet wannabes, there\u2019s been no specific evidence for the start of planet formation until now, McClure said. <\/p>\n

In a stunning picture taken by the ESO\u2019s Alma telescope network, the emerging planetary system resembles a lightning bug glowing against the black void.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to know how many planets might form around HOPS-315. With a gas disk as massive as the sun\u2019s might have been, it could also wind up with eight planets a million or more years from now, according to McClure.<\/p>\n

Purdue University\u2019s Merel van \u2019t Hoff, a co-author, is eager to find more budding planetary systems. By casting a wider net, astronomers can look for similarities and determine which processes might be crucial to forming Earth-like worlds. <\/p>\n

\u201cAre there Earth-like planets out there or are we like so special that we might not expect it to occur very often?\u201d <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP video journalist Javier Arciga contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming in the gas…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4514,4515,47782,1612,47783,165,27902,159,167,4810,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-67717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-chile","10":"tag-fred-ciesla","11":"tag-latin-america","12":"tag-melissa-mcclure","13":"tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","14":"tag-planets","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space-exploration","17":"tag-stars","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114864091642463429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}