Astronomers have made an incredible discovery – they have found signs of a massive disk of dust and gas spinning around a distant star in a whole different galaxy.
This marks a significant milestone in our understanding of star development and the formation of planetary systems. Breaking new ground, the extended disk was found in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy approximately 179,000 light-years from our Milky Way.
According to astronomer Anna McLeod from Durham University in the UK, who first identified the disk, “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.”
Typically, stars are born from dense clumps in clouds of molecular gas and dust. They form accretion disks that play a fundamental role in the creation of planets and other elements of a planetary system.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has imaged several similar disks within the Milky Way. However, observing such disks outside our galaxy has posed significant challenges due to their distance.
McLeod and her colleagues utilized the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument to identify the HH 1177 system, which exhibited signs of a jet formed during star formation. To confirm these findings, they used ALMA to detect signs of rotation in the accretion disk.
The star identified in the HH 1177 system is young and massive, still actively drawing material from the disk. Surprisingly, unlike its Milky Way counterparts, the HH 1177 disk is visible in optical wavelengths, a revelation that has implications for understanding star formation in different galactic environments.
This groundbreaking discovery sets the stage for further research into star formation across varying galactic landscapes, advancing our knowledge in this area.
The team’s findings have been detailed in a paper published in Nature.
