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Witness the groundbreaking news that astronomers have observed a young star outside our Milky Way galaxy enclosed by a dense disk, opening up the possibility of planet formation within.
The rare star named HH 1177 and its swirling disk were identified within the neighboring dwarf galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years away. This groundbreaking discovery paves the way for a more profound understanding of star and planet formation.
As a newborn star attracts matter from its surroundings, gas and dust accumulate in a flat disk around the star, called an accretion disk, due to intense gravitational forces. The spinning disk transfers the matter onto the star, causing it to grow. The greater the star’s mass, the stronger its gravitational pull, drawing more gas and dust into its disk.
Massive stars like HH 1177 live fast and die young, forming rapidly and having a lifespan much shorter than stars like our sun. This fleeting existence makes it difficult to observe the early stages of massive stars in our galaxy, as the star and its disk are hidden by the material from which they form.
Material within the Large Magellanic Cloud, where HH 1177 resides, differs from that of the Milky Way, providing a clearer view of this intriguing star and its accretion disk.
According to lead study author Dr. Anna McLeod, “When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc, it was a special moment.” This unprecedented find offers direct evidence of star and planet formation within another galaxy, contributing to our knowledge of this cosmic process.
Astronomers, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of telescopes in Chile (ALMA), estimated HH 1177 to be about 15 times the mass of the sun. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.
Dynamic activity of a young star
Analysis by the ALMA team using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument provided detailed observations of a jet of material emanating from HH 1177 within the gas cloud of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The ALMA team utilized detailed measurements to confirm the presence of a rapidly rotating disk around HH 1177.
In addition to young stars, supermassive black holes also have thin, hot disks of matter. “We are in an era of rapid technological advancement when it comes to astronomical facilities. Being able to study how stars form at such incredible distances and in a different galaxy is very exciting,” said lead researcher Dr. Anna McLeod.
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