SPHERE image of the dusty disc around IM Lupi
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New images from the SPHERE instrument on
ESO’s Very Large Telescope are revealing the dusty discs surrounding
nearby young stars in greater detail than previously achieved. They show
a bizarre variety of shapes, sizes and structures, including the likely
effects of planets still in the process of forming.
The SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope
(VLT) in Chile allows astronomers to suppress the brilliant light of
nearby stars in order to obtain a better view of the regions surrounding
them. This collection of new SPHERE images is just a sample of the wide
variety of dusty discs being found around young stars.
These discs are wildly different in size and shape — some
contain bright rings, some dark rings, and some even resemble
hamburgers. They also differ dramatically in appearance depending on
their orientation in the sky — from circular face-on discs to narrow
discs seen almost edge-on.
SPHERE’s primary task is to discover and study giant exoplanets orbiting nearby stars using direct imaging. But the instrument is also one of the best tools in existence to obtain images of the discs around young stars — regions where planets may be forming. Studying such discs is critical to investigating the link between disc properties and the formation and presence of planets.
Many of the young stars shown here come from a new study of T Tauri stars,
a class of stars that are very young (less than 10 million years old)
and vary in brightness. The discs around these stars contain gas, dust,
and planetesimals — the building blocks of planets and the progenitors
of planetary systems.
These images also show what our own Solar System may have
looked like in the early stages of its formation, more than four billion
years ago.
Most of the images presented were obtained as part of the
DARTTS-S (Discs ARound T Tauri Stars with SPHERE) survey. The distances
of the targets ranged from 230 to 550 light-years away from Earth. For
comparison, the Milky Way is roughly 100 000 light-years across, so
these stars are, relatively speaking, very close to Earth. But even at
this distance, it is very challenging to obtain good images of the faint
reflected light from discs, since they are outshone by the dazzling
light of their parent stars.
Another new SPHERE observation is the
discovery of an edge-on disc around the star GSC 07396-00759, found
by the SHINE (SpHere INfrared survey for Exoplanets) survey. This red
star is a member of a multiple star system also included in the DARTTS-S
sample but, oddly, this new disc appears to be more evolved than the
gas-rich disc around the T Tauri star in the same system, although they
are the same age.This puzzling difference in the evolutionary
timescales of discs around two stars of the same age is another reason
why astronomers are keen to find out more about discs and their
characteristics.
Astronomers have used SPHERE to obtain many other impressive images, as well as for other studies including the interaction of a planet with a disc, the orbital motions within a system, and the time evolution of a disc.
The new results from SPHERE, along with data from other telescopes such as ALMA,
are revolutionising astronomers’ understanding of the environments
around young stars and the complex mechanisms of planetary formation.
More Information
More Information
The images of T Tauri star discs were presented in a paper
entitled “Disks Around T Tauri Stars With SPHERE (DARTTS-S) I: SPHERE /
IRDIS Polarimetric Imaging of 8 Prominent T Tauri Disks”, by H. Avenhaus
et al., to appear in in the Astrophysical Journal. The discovery of the
edge-on disc is reported in a paper entitled “A new disk discovered
with VLT/SPHERE around the M star GSC 07396-00759”, by E. Sissa et al.,
to appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The first team is composed of Henning Avenhaus (Max Planck
Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany; ETH Zurich, Institute for
Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Zurich, Switzerland; Universidad de
Chile, Santiago, Chile), Sascha P. Quanz (ETH Zurich, Institute for
Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Zurich, Switzerland; National Center
of Competence in Research “PlanetS”), Antonio Garufi (Universidad
Autonónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain), Sebastian Perez (Universidad de
Chile, Santiago, Chile; Millennium Nucleus Protoplanetary Disks
Santiago, Chile), Simon Casassus (Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile;
Millennium Nucleus Protoplanetary Disks Santiago, Chile), Christophe
Pinte (Monash University, Clayton, Australia; Univ. Grenoble Alpes,
CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), Gesa H.-M. Bertrang (Universidad de
Chile, Santiago, Chile), Claudio Caceres (Universidad Andrés Bello,
Santiago, Chile), Myriam Benisty (Unidad Mixta Internacional
Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, CNRS/INSU; Universidad de Chile, Santiago,
Chile; Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France) and Carsten
Dominik (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands).
The second team is composed of: E. Sissa (INAF-Osservatorio
Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), J. Olofsson (Max Planck
Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany; Universidad de Valparaíso,
Valparaíso, Chile), A. Vigan (Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS,
Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Marseille, France), J.C.
Augereau (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France) , V.
D’Orazi (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), S.
Desidera (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), R.
Gratton (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), M.
Langlois (Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de
Marseille Marseille, France; CRAL, CNRS, Université de Lyon, Ecole
Normale Suprieure de Lyon, France), E. Rigliaco (INAF-Osservatorio
Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), A. Boccaletti (LESIA,
Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie,
Université Paris Diderot, Meudon, France), Q. Kral (LESIA, Observatoire
de Paris-Meudon, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université
Paris Diderot, Meudon, France; Institute of Astronomy, University of
Cambridge, Cambridge, UK), C. Lazzoni (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di
Padova, Padova, Italy; Universitá di Padova, Padova, Italy), D. Mesa
(INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy; University of
Atacama, Copiapo, Chile), S. Messina (INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di
Catania, Catania, Italy), E. Sezestre (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS,
IPAG, Grenoble, France), P. Thébault (LESIA, Observatoire de
Paris-Meudon, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Paris
Diderot, Meudon, France), A. Zurlo (Universidad Diego Portales,
Santiago, Chile; Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de
Astronomia, CNRS/INSU; Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile;
INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy), T. Bhowmik
(Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), M. Bonnefoy
(Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), G. Chauvin
(Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France; Universidad
Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), M. Feldt (Max Planck Institute for
Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), J. Hagelberg (Université Grenoble
Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), A.-M. Lagrange (Université
Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), M. Janson (Stockholm
University, Stockholm, Sweden; Max Planck Institute for Astronomy,
Heidelberg, Germany), A.-L. Maire (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy,
Heidelberg, Germany), F. Ménard (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG,
Grenoble, France), J. Schlieder (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA; Max Planck Institute for Astronomy,
Heidelberg, Germany), T. Schmidt (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG,
Grenoble, France), J. Szulági (Institute for Particle Physics and
Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Institute for
Computational Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland), E.
Stadler (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), D.
Maurel (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), A.
Deboulbé (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), P.
Feautrier (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), J.
Ramos (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany) and R.
Rigal (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands).
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy
organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based
astronomical observatory by far. It has 15 Member States: Austria,
Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as
a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on
the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based
observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific
discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising
cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique
world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor.
At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading
Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes,
VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey
Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor,
APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on
Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre
Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s
biggest eye on the sky”.
Links
Links
- Research paper (Avenhaus et al.)
- Research paper (Sissa et al.)
- SPHERE consortium web page
- Photos of the VLT
- Photos of SPHERE
Contacts
Henning Avenhaus
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany
Email: havenhaus@gmail.com
Elena Sissa
INAF - Astronomical Observatory of Padova
Padova, Italy
Email: elena.sissa@inaf.it
Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
Source: ESO/News
