Hubble Captures a Protoplanetary Disk

Astroturtle writes "The Hubble Space Telescope's new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has captured a detailed image of spiral rings in a distant protoplanetary disk -- the pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star in which planets are expected to condense. But contrary to earlier suggestions, the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form."

Comments

Makes one wonder

[zokum]

Every time something like this is published, makes me wonder when we'll discover extra-terrestrial life. I honestly don't think it's a question of if, it's more about what, and whether they still are around. Seti@home might not be the solution, but as with all science, one has to start somewhere :-)

Re:Makes one wonder

[WegianWarrior]

It seems such a waste of space if we're alone... even more so if you're semi-religious as I am (I believe that science can explain most of the universe around us, but it was probaly the "great arcitect" that set it up to begin with). As we learn more about the universe and life, we may understand where and how to look for life out there.

Life is one thing, intelligence is different. Before we all get worked up over SETI@home, why not take a look at STI@home - the search for terrestial intelligence?

Re:Makes one wonder

[digital bath]

Hopefully. It would be a shame to have written all those sci-fi books and have them all turn out wrong...

Re:Makes one wonder

[orangesquid]

Did anyone besides me see the story title and think: Wow, straight out of Ghostbusters!

I think the best place to look for life "out there" is wherever there's dryers that eat socks, because that's a sure sign of intelligent life.

I hold a similar semi-religious viewpoint, but sometimes my views are more along the lines of... God == Universe. Makes religious ideas different in interesting ways...

Re:Makes one wonder

[zokum]

I'd say it would be a lot more interesting to see which scifi books that did get it right, and how the hell they accomplished just that.......

Re:Makes one wonder

[Bicoid]

Whether we'll find extraterrestrial life (self-replicating microenvironments that maintain homeostasis) is a given. Whether we'll recognize it as such is something completely different.

And on the briht side, when we finally have the technology to get to this star system, the planets will already have coalesced and enough time will have passed for life to develop (possibly more than enough time if NASA keeps up their present track record).

Re:Makes one wonder

[ForestGrump]

In my opinion, I hope never (because I have a bet going with my roomate.) Here is the bet. cure for cancer first? or finding ET first? I run a United Devices client for cancer research, he runs SETI@HOME. And those who say I am biased...I've listened to ArtBell since 7th grade (in college now). -Grumpy Old Man

Re:cookie required

[Anonymous Coward]

a cookie doesn't contain any personal indentifying information unless you provided it to them.

Original Image

[StingRayGun]

It's nice to see the original image in this case. The color-enhanced added ones look pretty, and contribute to further exploration funding, but are often misleading.

Re:Original Image

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to clip out the alien spacecraft.

Re:Original Image

[CheshireCatCO]

Why are they misleading? I'm a huge advocate of saying in captions when you've played with the colors (and how you've done so), but doing so is often perfectly good science. Stretching color tables let us see details that would otherwise be too faint for our eyes.

Re:Original Image

[skwirlmaster]

Misleading Eh? Let me pose a question to you then. What kind of light was Hubble using to capture these images? I don't think it was the visible part of the spectrum. Doesn't that make all of the colors you see false, and thereby misleading?

Re:Original Image

[budgenator]

The photo is a processed visible light image according to the hubbleste/

It was about time.

[schwatoo]

I guess the war on Protoplanetary Disks is going well then.

Proprietary Discs?

[yerricde]

After reading the headline, my first thought was of a copyright infringement sting operation. But then I realized it said "Protoplanetary" and not "Proprietary".

Re:Proprietary Discs?

[Gleng]

I suppose it's time to head down to the patent office and register "A method of condensing planets in a pancake-shaped cloud of gas and dust around a young star"

Re:cookie required

[photonrider]

A cookie is not needed for a user to read the articles on their site. They say in their error message that cookies are needed for charts. They don't need to be setting cookies unless you're viewing their charts. Lazy web coders.

Jupiter and/or Saturn

[The Ape With No Name]

Help me with my astronomy! Can we infer that the Gas giants might have helped form the inner planets if a companion mass like a star or large planet is necessary to do so? I don't know the accepted timeline/sequence of planetary formation in our system, but this kinda popped to mind.

Re:Jupiter and/or Saturn

[zer0vector]

I'm having a little trouble understanding your question, but I think what you're asking is "Would a massive companion body, be it a star or planet, aid in the formation of inner planets?" The answer to that is: kind of. They don't necessarily aid in the formation, but a large body would have the tendency to deflect smaller bodies, thus clearing the areas close to the star of debris. In our case this obviously helped with the formation of life. If the geometry or timeline changed a bit, however, it can be easy to see how a massive companion could inhibit the formation of smaller bodies. Assuming Jupiter was a bit closer to the sun, and was around before any largish planetesimals formed, it's gravity would tend to disperse the planet-forming materials, and lead to a system without close-in rocky planets. So it could really go either way, depending on the timeline you choose.

Re:Jupiter and/or Saturn

[CheshireCatCO]

Sorry, but not right. The proto-solar nebula was probably pretty well-mixed in elemental abundances. The reason you get rocky/metallic planets in close and icey giant planets further out is purely a matter of temperature. The inner disk is much hotter than the other disk, so that hydrogen compounds like methane, water and ammonia cannot condense into solid forms. Since there are 10 times as much of these compounds as metals and silicates, planets forming father out (past the "frost line" where water first can freeze out) have much more material to build with. Thus this build faster and into more massive bodies. At around 10 Earth-masses, the cores can start to hang on to nebular gasses like hydrogen and helium. And you get a giant planet. Inside the frost line, you're struck building with rocks and metals, and you get a smaller planet.

No pushing or pulling of specific elements/compounds is involved.

Re:Jupiter and/or Saturn

[CheshireCatCO]

Actually, you can infer that. (Although I don't see it coming from this bit of research.) Simulations indicate that having a Jupiter-ish planet in place helps the formation of the inner solar system along. But, of course, simulations are only so accurate.

Re:Jupiter and/or Saturn

[rajohn]

Nicely done. You are quite right, temperature, plus angular momentum, have more to do with it (planetary formation) than does mass. Without the initial rotation, there most likely would be no planets at all, all material having fallen down to the center in the early collapse!

Hubble Space Avenger

[1nv4d3r]

Officials could not comment on the captured disk's plans, but did say that it had been taken to Guantanamo Bay for further questioning. Any large amount of dust must be checked out, especially with so much 'nuculer' activity in the region.

Re:Hubble Space Avenger

[jasonditz]

I believe the correct spelling is "New-key-lurr"

slashdotted!

[unborracho]

anyone have a mirror?

Re:slashdotted!

[GigsVT]

Well, I made a mirror, but for some reason it came out distorted.

at last...

[Rxke]

even Hubble, high in the sky, will be /. ed...

Spiral form

[MonkeyBoyo]

the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form.

I thought that standard opinion on spiral forms (e.g. galaxies) was that they were created by interaction with massive companions.

Who has ever proposed that internal bodies can cause a spiral form?

Re:Spiral form

[Doctor Fishboy]

I thought that standard opinion on spiral forms (e.g. galaxies) was that they were created by interaction with massive companions.

Spirals in galaxies and these spirals in protoplanetary disks have different origins, and in the galactic spirals case, you don't need a binary companion to cause spiral structure.

Who has ever proposed that internal bodies can cause a spiral form?

OK, this is probably a gross simplification, so if there are any disk formation astronomers out there (you know who you are!), they'll give a much better description than this one!

It partially depends on the viscosity of the material in the disk, and where most of the mass resides. If the mass of the disk is much smaller than the mass of the central star, the disk structure is dominated by the gravitational field of the central star and this tends to smooth out any spiral structure in the disk, and then you need a binary companion to stir up spiral modes in the disk.

If the disk itself is massive enough, and the viscocity of the material is low enough, the disk's gravitational field can amplify up any spiral patterns that occasionally appear. So no, you don't need a binary compantion if the disk is massive enough. In this specific case, though, the disk mass is small, and so there's probably a binary companion acting as a swizzle stick.

For galaxies, nearly all the mass resides in the disk of the galaxy and not in the centre (the mass of the black hole in the centre of the galaxy is tiny compared to the rest of the mass in our galaxy, and there's a honking huge halo of dark matter, I know, I know...) and so spiral modes tend to be self-reinforcing as they sweep around the galaxy.

Blurgh, too early on Saturday morning...

Dr Fish

Re:Spiral form

[MonkeyBoyo]

If the disk itself is massive enough, and the viscocity of the material is low enough, the disk's gravitational field can amplify up any spiral patterns that occasionally appear.

Do you have any references? I'm pretty sure I've read about simulations that show that spirals don't evolve from nothing. And simulations showing how interaction with other galaxies can cause spirals.

If spirals can occur in a vacuume then why have the overwhelming number of galaxies which are elliptical not become spiral yet?

Re:Spiral form

[Doctor Fishboy]

I think we may be both right, according to this reply on the Cornell ask an astronomer site, the 'self peturbation' theory can explain the fuzzier spiral arm galaxies, but not the larger grand design galaxies, which do need an external companion. It's not clear cut at all, though.

As for your second question, it's to do with the way the stars orbit in a galaxy. If you could draw all the orbits of the stars in a spiral galaxy, you would see a badly stacked set of hula-hoops, - most orbits are nearly circular, and they all go around the galaxy in the same direction. With an elliptical galaxy, the orbits would resemble a tangled hairnet. There's no perferred axis of rotation, and there are many very eccentric orbits.

You tend to see giant elliptical galaxies sitting in the middle of groups of smaller spiral galaxies, and it is thought that collisions between spiral galaxies lead to formation of giant elliptical galaxies. The interaction of the two spiral galaxies' gravitational potentials then scrambled the orbits of the stars together.

Spiral structure NEEDS ordered co-rotating material in which to form, so that's why ellipticals don't form them -the orbits of the stars are too randomised to form them.

I hope this makes some sense!

Dr Fish

CENSORED!

[kinnell]

The black areas are omitted because of poor data

Yeah right! What they mean is that there was something phallic looking in the picture. Or maybe this is part of the movement to stop the publication of scientific findings which might be useful to terrorists. Either that, or they didn't want us to know about the alien civilisation they're waging a secret war against. Is nothing sacred?

Re:CENSORED!

[pussycat]

I'm afraid the truth is actually much worse. The black void pictured is identical to the one previously encountered, as can plainly be seen here.

It's the result of an 11,000 mile long space amoeba, which, if allowed to multiply, will threaten every living thing in this galaxy, starting with Spock.

Don't say I didn't warn you. Details and more details.

embedded planets

[AndroidCat]

the intricate structure of this particular disk is probably caused by a nearby companion star rather than by embedded planets starting to form.

If there were embedded planets there, they wouldn't be allowed to tell where they are, or face expulsion.

Nics pics.

[Eevee]

I wouldn't say spectacular, but the photos are impressive for the detail available. (I'm spoiled from all the color nebula shots.) The spiral formations are easily visible, even without the 'cheatsheet' image.

Shame the images can't capture all the close-in dust. Considering that Pluto's only 40 a.u. out, having data from almost 100 a.u. around the star missing means a lot of the prime planetary formation area isn't available to examine.

OT gripe about idiotic web sites

[A nonymous Coward]

In this particular case, as in many many others, they insist on having cookies or they serve up a finger waving page, naughty naughty me, instead of the desired page.

What the heck is it with this infatuation with cookies? I have never been to Sky And Telescope before, there is nothing they need to remember about me, why do sites insist on even creating cookies before they are needed? Worset yet, why do they pretend they can't show any content without a cookie?

I know cookies have their uses, I have written many websites where the cookie holds a key to db records, and I can even understand the rationale news sites using cookies for ad tracking, annoying as it is, but even news sites generally don't refuse to show the page in question just because a cookie couldn't be set.

Yes, I will send a grip to the webmaster, but I also know it will be a waste of time.

Re:OT gripe about idiotic web sites

[TotallyUseless]

When sending a grip to people, I find it most effective to use the Kung Fu grip! That usually gets their attention

Re:OT gripe about idiotic web sites

[shadowbearer]

I find it more useful to use the gripping hand.

Disclaimer: IANA Motie.

SB

Re:OT gripe about idiotic web sites

[Pharmboy]

When sending a grip to people, I find it most effective to use the Kung Fu grip! That usually gets their attention

I'm more of a PolyGrip(r) man. Also is handy for keeping a condom on, for those nights you are out of Viagra. (Should have answered those emails I guess)

Whirling thoughts

[G3ckoG33k]

It is all black. Suddenly, you sense you are sourrounded by a whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that the whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. And, then in a moment you realize that that larger whirl is but part of a larger whirl. [...]

It's all Greek...

[b3h]

HD 141569A is a very young type-A star 320 light-years away in Libra. Shining at 7th magnitude...

Perhaps extra-terrestrials are already here and have infiltrated the space program. That quote certainly isn't in English.

Nice eye candy though.

Re:It's all Greek...

[CheshireCatCO]

Translation:
"The star is a young fairly massive and hot star 320 light-years away (I'll let you look that one up if you don't already know it :-) in the constellation Libra (which is largely irrelevent, really.). It's brightness seen from Earth (presumably) is about a factor of two fainter than the faintest star you can see on a clear, dark night.

Re:It's all Greek...

[reverseengineer]

Just adding to that excellent explanation, the arcane code HD 141569A merely gives the star's listing in the Henry Draper Catalogue, a gigantic star catalogue (over 250,000 entries) first compiled about a century ago. The spectral class A does denote that HD 141569A is a young, fairly massive, and hot star- its surface temperature should be between 7,500 - 10,000K, and it should be white to blue-white in color. Another example of an A type star would be Sirius.

I also wanted to point out that the story submitter gets it a bit wrong- which is more the fault of the story, which fails to make this clear- HD 141569A is not in a binary system with a single companion star, it is in a three star system with two other stars. These other two stars, HD 141569B and HD 141569C, are in a binary relationship with each other, and together perturb the disk around HD 141569A, which is over 100 billion miles from the pair. This paper (.pdf file) from 1999 on the Arxiv gives more details on the star system and protoplanetary disk.

And you know nothing of how to use cookies

[A nonymous Coward]

Maybe you know all about how cookies work, but you obviously have no clue of when to use them, or why. In this case, their error page itself shows how ignorant their web programmers are. It says the cookie is used to track location for the sky chart and astronomical almanac. Well, duh, this is a news story. If they really needed three cookies (not one) for those functions, they should wait until they are needed, not just ask for them regardless.

And three cookies, what is that for? Why not one? Even if they want to keep the information itself in a cookie, instead of in a database, with the database key being the cookie value, there is no reason the three cookies couldn't be combined into a single one.

They are incompetent web programmers.

Any mirrors?

[rf0]

Site is slashdotted. Anyone got a copu

Rus

Here's a non-cookie site

[DrMorpheus]

Go to the source if you want to view the pictures without Sky and Telescope's insistence on putting a cookie on you system.

Here's the URL

Re:Offtopic, but with a good reason

[Bicoid]

Take that approach, and you'll get a very high false positive for proctologists.

Military must be communist, Electric, Water ......

[zymano]

companies must be communist. It's really sad hearing this from an american.Your education was flawed. The government can do things that private sector would never do at a decent price. Ask california how the private sector screwed them for energy.

Breaking up monopolies is what the government needs to do to create a fair free marketplace which hasn't occurred in OSs'. The republican presidents just sat and took orders from microsoft.

Great for the hubble. Interferometer question !

[zymano]

When will NASA put the new form of telescope that revolves around an axis up in orbit called an interferometer telescope? It's supposed to be a couple of hundred feet long and rotate with alot of mirrors acting as one large mirror. I think the name of the telescope was Large Array Interferometer Telescope. I read somewhere also that they were going to put one out near jupiter. Resolution would be revolutionary! Thanks for any info.

Planets forming, eh?

[mattite]

Those pictures look more like Rorschach tests, or my neighbor the last time she took LSD.

Astroturtle?

[mraymer]

Heh, go figure... someone that goes by the nick Astroturtle submits this...

I have to wonder though, did he pick Astroturtle because it seems like light is pretty fsking slow when it travels across interstellar distances? ;)

Or maybe he just likes turtles?

I got it... maybe when he was a kid he attached small turtles to model rockets and sent them off into the wild blue yonder... thus... ASTROTURTLE!

OK, a little more OT...

These pics are neat and I'm sure astronomers are all happy with them, but I think they aren't really eye candy like some of the other ones.

Re:Astroturtle?

[barakn]

It is a reference to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, which rests on the backs of four elephants who stand on the back of A'Tuin, the Great Turtle.

Wow - 320 light years away

[apsmith]

I guess that's not all that far on a galactic scale; still I'm extremely impressed that we can get images of what seems to be solar-system scale (actually the width was several hundred astronomical units across, so a few times bigger than our solar system - but it's a bright star too). High resolution imagery like that with just Hubble makes things like the proposed Kepler planet-finder telescope actually seem feasible to directly view planets around distant stars. We'll be entering a new age soon, where we'll actually know what our interstellar neighborhood really looks like. Wow!

Star?

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

Does anyone else think the picture of the protoplanetary disk just looks like someone shining a flashlight on a piece of shit? Okay.

Unusual Publication Date

[dunkstr]

Anybody else notice that the publication date on this thing is April 1st? I was pretty sure that the Hubble Space telescope didn't have that kind of resolving power. Otherwise, I believe it could detect planets directly!

planetary disk?

[0x12d3]

And I thought this 120G would last me a while.

Make you think..

[mivok]

I know the planet in the picture isnt far enough away in this case, but it would be great if hubble showed us a picture of a proto-planet/star/galaxy a few million light years away, why by now, has become an earth like planet, with an advanced civilisation that has discovered FTL travel, who are now on their merry way to earth to say hi! (Or less great - with big guns aimed in our direction).

Re:Military must be communist, Electric, Water ...

[zymano]

sorry but i still disagree. I think Ross Perot and his buddies know more about the energy monopoly crisis than you or me.

Please don't compare Russian ruled markets to our Military or Utilities. If they were in private hands we would be screwed big time because market forces can't apply . How many companies out there build nuclear submarines?

The diamond example you mention is weak for this reason, diamonds are rocks , yeah ,you're right, but digging them up out deep in the ground is not easy and costs money. Tools and labor your not mentioning.

You can only have fair,free markets if there are enough players. Not enough then you have market collusion. Wouldn't it be better to have the gov monitor important sectors that don't have competition and can regulate prices openly.

I got to tell you that i had up to here with the broadband/monopoly networks of this country. They stink. They're private enterprise and they suck. If the government ran them we would be paying only 1/3 the price.

They would probably turn the question around

[Crag]

"Why won't you accept our cookie? We're not doing anything with it that you have any reason to care about. There's no reason to use a browser that doesn't work with cookies. You're just being paranoid and weird." I happen to agree with you that cookies should not be required except when used for actual functionality (banking, shopping, email online). This is obviously not one of those cases. My only point is that _they_ don't see the problem with cookies in the first place because they don't think like us. They probably bought every version of Windows when it came out, and they probably think DRM is good for artists and users. A friend said something last night that first this perfectly: "I don't understand why people insist on being wrong."

Naw....

[wolf2q]

The proof, that there is intelligent life out there is....
They DON'T come and visit us....
What would THEY do with us anyway??

Anyone noticed?

[os2fan]

1.. Date of article = 1 April 2.. 141569 is pretty close to the digits of pi, pi = 3.14159265359 Might be coincidene...... :)