Space is a vast place that finding planets could take a long time. Astronomers, however, have seen planets and even star systems that have planets forming around them. Astronomers still have much research to go into to know how planets are formed, especially large planets such are found in our solar system.
To look for clues, astronomers turn to TW Hydrae, which is a young star. A team led by Takashi Tsukagoshi from Ibaraki University in Japan sees the young star as a possible place for planetary formation, according to Science Daily.
TW Hydrae has a surrounding disk made up of tiny dust particles. Earlier a young binary star system has also been observed with planetary disks forming around them. TW Hydrae then would be a good candidate should the disk around it turn out to be planetary disk formations.
To view TW Hydrae the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope has been used, as the ALMA site says in its report. The ALMA observation has been made using two radio frequencies. Through this, the researchers were able to determine that smaller, micrometer-sized dust particles make up the majority of the disk.
The disk also has gaps in it and it is in these gaps that the smaller particles are mostly located. One of the gaps on the disk is likely created by a large planet. The larger dust particles are then pushed out of the gap, leaving only the smaller particles. Based on the size of the gap the planet is likely a little bit larger than Neptune.
The planet has not been directly observed yet and is likely still in the process of formation. Observations are still continuing as the team plans to polarize the radio waves. In this way, it can then measure the amount of gas in the disk. The disk is largely made up of gas and dust, and the team hopes that by measuring the amount of dust it could have a better estimate on the size of the forming planet.
