Hubble Watches How a Giant Planet Grows

This illustration of the newly forming exoplanet PDS 70b shows how material may be falling onto the giant world as it builds up mass. By employing Hubble’s ultraviolet light (UV) sensitivity, researchers got a unique look at radiation from extremely hot gas falling onto the planet, allowing them to directly measure the planet’s mass growth rate for the first time. The planet PDS 70b is encircled by its own gas-and-dust disk that’s siphoning material from the vastly larger circumstellar disk in this solar system. The researchers hypothesize that magnetic field lines extend from its circumplanetary disk down to the exoplanet’s atmosphere and are funneling material onto the planet’s surface. The illustration shows one possible magnetospheric accretion configuration, but the magnetic field’s detailed geometry requires future work to probe. The remote world has already bulked up to five times the mass of Jupiter over a period of about five million years, but is anticipated to be in the tail end of its formation process. PDS 70b orbits the orange dwarf star PDS 70 approximately 370 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted (STScI). Hi-res image

 

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet that is feeding off material surrounding a young star.

“We just don’t know very much about how giant planets grow,” said Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin. “This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness material falling onto a planet. Our results open up a new area for this research.”

Though over 4,000 exoplanets have been cataloged so far, only about 15 have been directly imaged to date by telescopes. And the planets are so far away and small, they are simply dots in the best photos. The team’s fresh technique for using Hubble to directly image this planet paves a new route for further exoplanet research, especially during a planet’s formative years.

This huge exoplanet, designated PDS 70b, orbits the orange dwarf star PDS 70, which is already known to have two actively forming planets inside a huge disk of dust and gas encircling the star. The system is located 370 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. 

“This system is so exciting because we can witness the formation of a planet,” said Yifan Zhou, also of the University of Texas at Austin. “This is the youngest bona fide planet Hubble has ever directly imaged.” At a youthful five million years, the planet is still gathering material and building up mass. 

Hubble’s ultraviolet light (UV) sensitivity offers a unique look at radiation from extremely hot gas falling onto the planet. “Hubble’s observations allowed us to estimate how fast the planet is gaining mass,” added Zhou.

 

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope caught the first clear image of a forming planet, PDS 70b, around a dwarf star in 2018. The planet stands out as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the light of the central star.  Credits: ESO, VLT, André B. Müller (ESO).Hi-res image

The UV observations, which add to the body of research about this planet, allowed the team to directly measure the planet’s mass growth rate for the first time. The remote world has already bulked up to five times the mass of Jupiter over a period of about five million years. The present measured accretion rate has dwindled to the point where, if the rate remained steady for another million years, the planet would only increase by approximately an additional 1/100th of a Jupiter-mass.

Zhou and Bowler emphasize that these observations are a single snapshot in time – more data are required to determine if the rate at which the planet is adding mass is increasing or decreasing. “Our measurements suggest that the planet is in the tail end of its formation process.” 

The youthful PDS 70 system is filled with a primordial gas-and-dust disk that provides fuel to feed the growth of planets throughout the entire system. The planet PDS 70b is encircled by its own gas-and-dust disk that’s siphoning material from the vastly larger circumstellar disk. The researchers hypothesize that magnetic field lines extend from its circumplanetary disk down to the exoplanet’s atmosphere and are funneling material onto the planet’s surface.

“If this material follows columns from the disk onto the planet, it would cause local hot spots,” Zhou explained. “These hot spots could be at least 10 times hotter than the temperature of the planet.” These hot patches were found to glow fiercely in UV light. 

Hubble observations pinpoint planet PDS 70b. A coronagraph on Hubble’s camera blocks out the glare of the central star for the planet to be directly observed. Though over 4,000 exoplanets have been cataloged so far, only about 15 have been directly imaged to date by telescopes. The team’s fresh technique for using Hubble to directly image this planet paves a new route for further exoplanet research, especially during a planet’s formative years. Credits: Joseph DePasquale (STScI). Hi-res image

These observations offer insights into how gas giant planets formed around our Sun 4.6 billion years ago. Jupiter may have bulked up on a surrounding disk of infalling material. Its major moons would have also formed from leftovers in that disk. 

A challenge to the team was overcoming the glare of the parent star. PDS 70b orbits at approximately the same distance as Uranus does from the Sun, but its star is more than 3,000 times brighter than the planet at UV wavelengths. As Zhou processed the images, he very carefully removed the star’s glare to leave behind only light emitted by the planet. In doing so, he improved the limit of how close a planet can be to its star in Hubble observations by a factor of five.

“Thirty-one years after launch, we’re still finding new ways to use Hubble,” Bowler added. “Yifan’s observing strategy and post-processing technique will open new windows into studying similar systems, or even the same system, repeatedly with Hubble. With future observations, we could potentially discover when the majority of the gas and dust falls onto their planets and if it does so at a constant rate.”

The researchers' results were published in April 2021 in The Astronomical Journal.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

Media Contacts:

Claire Andreoli
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Claire Blome
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Editor: Lynn Jenner

 

Source: NASA/Solar System and Beyeond

---

‘Moon-forming’ Circumplanetary Disk Discovered in Distant Star System

Artist impression of the circumplanetary disk recently discovered around a young planet in the PDS 70 star system. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello. Hi-Res File

ALMA image of the dust in PDS 70, a star system located approximately 370 light-years from Earth. Two faint smudges in the gap region of this disk are associated with newly formed planets. One such concentration of dust is a circumplanetary disk, the first such feature ever detected around a distant star. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); A. Isella. Hi-Res File

Composite image of PDS 70. Comparing new ALMA data to earlier VLT observations, astronomers determined that the young planet designated PDS 70 c has a circumplanetary disk, a feature that is strongly theorized to be the birthplace of moons. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) A. Isella; ESO. Hi-Res File

---

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have made the first-ever observations of a circumplanetary disk, the planet-girding belt of dust and gas that astronomers strongly theorize controls the formation of planets and gives rise to an entire system of moons, like those found around Jupiter.

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and its international partners (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ), ALMA is among the most complex and powerful astronomical observatories on Earth or in space. The telescope is an array of 66 high-precision dish antennas in northern Chile.

This never-before-seen feature was discovered around one of the planets in PDS 70, a young star located approximately 370 light-years from Earth. Recently, astronomers confirmed the presence of two massive, Jupiter-like planets there. This earlier discovery was made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), which detected the warm glow naturally emitted by hydrogen gas accreting onto the planets.

The new ALMA observations instead image the faint radio waves given off by the tiny (about one tenth of a millimeter across) particles of dust around the star.

The ALMA data, combined with the earlier optical and infrared VLT observations, provide compelling evidence that a dusty disk capable of forming multiple moons surrounds the outermost known planet in the system.

“For the first time, we can conclusively see the telltale signs of a circumplanetary disk, which helps to support many of the current theories of planet formation,” said Andrea Isella, an astronomer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and lead author on a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, Letters.

“By comparing our observations to the high-resolution infrared and optical images, we can clearly see that an otherwise enigmatic concentration of tiny dust particles is actually a planet-girding disk of dust, the first such feature ever conclusively observed,” he said. According to the researchers, this also is the first time that a planet has been clearly seen in these three distinct bands of light.

Unlike the icy rings of Saturn, which likely formed by the crashing together of comets and rocky bodies relatively recently in the history of our solar system, a circumplanetary disk is the lingering remains of the planet-formation process.

The ALMA data also revealed two distinct differences between the two newly discovered planets. The closer in of the two, PDS 70 b, which is about the same distance from its star as Uranus is from the Sun, has a trailing mass of dust behind it resembling a tail. “What this is and what it means for this planetary system is not yet known,” said Isella. “The only conclusive thing we can say is that it is far enough from the planet to be an independent feature.”

The second planet, PDS 70 c, resides in the exact same location as a clear knot of dust seen in the ALMA data. Since this planet is shining so brightly in the infrared and hydrogen bands of light, the astronomers can convincingly say that a fully formed planet is already in orbit there and that nearby gas continues to be syphoned onto the planet’s surface, finishing its adolescent growth spurt.

This outer planet is located approximately 5.3 billion kilometers from the host star, about the same distance as Neptune from our Sun. Astronomers estimate that this planet is approximately 1 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter. “If the planet is on the larger end of that estimate, it’s quite possible there might be planet-size moons in formation around it,” noted Isella.

The ALMA data also add one more important element to these observations.

Optical studies of planetary systems are notoriously challenging. Since the star is so much brighter than the planets, it is difficult to filter out the glare, much like trying to spot a firefly next to a search light. ALMA observations, however, don’t have that limitation since stars emit comparatively little light at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.

“This means we’ll be able to come back to this system at different time periods and more easily map the orbit of the planets and the concentration of dust in the system,” concluded Isella. “This will give us unique insights into the orbital properties of solar systems in their very earliest stages of development.”

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

 Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)/News

---

Contact:

Charles E. Blue: Public Information Officer
cblue@nrao.edu;
434-296-0314

---

Reference: 

“Detection of continuum submillimeter emission associated with candidate protoplanets,” A. Isella, et al., the Astrophysical Journal Letters: apjl.aas.org; Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.06308

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

---

First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT

PR Image eso1821a

SPHERE image of the newborn planet PDS 70b

PR Image eso1821b

Widefield image of the sky around PDS 70

 

PR Image eso1821c

The dwarf star PDS 70 in the constellation Centaurus

---

Videos

PR Video eso1821a

ESOcast 169 Light: First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet (4K UHD)

PR Video eso1821b

Zooming in on the orange dwarf star PDS 70 and its newly discovered planet

---

Spectrum reveals cloudy atmosphere 

SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The young planet is carving a path through the primordial disc of gas and dust around the very young star PDS 70. The data suggest that the planet’s atmosphere is cloudy.

Astronomers led by a group at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany have captured a spectacular snapshot of planetary formation around the young dwarf star PDS 70. By using the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) — one of the most powerful planet-hunting instruments in existence — the international team has made the first robust detection of a young planet, named PDS 70b, cleaving a path through the planet-forming material surrounding the young star [1].

The SPHERE instrument also enabled the team to measure the brightness of the planet at different wavelengths, which allowed properties of its atmosphere to be deduced.

The planet stands out very clearly in the new observations, visible as a bright point to the right of the blackened centre of the image. It is located roughly three billion kilometres from the central star, roughly equivalent to the distance between Uranus and the Sun. The analysis shows that PDS 70b is a giant gas planet with a mass a few times that of Jupiter. The planet's surface has a temperature of around 1000°C, making it much hotter than any planet in our own Solar System.

The dark region at the centre of the image is due to a coronagraph, a mask which blocks the blinding light of the central star and allows astronomers to detect its much fainter disc and planetary companion. Without this mask, the faint light from the planet would be utterly overwhelmed by the intense brightness of PDS 70.

“These discs around young stars are the birthplaces of planets, but so far only a handful of observations have detected hints of baby planets in them,” explains Miriam Keppler, who lead the team behind the discovery of PDS 70’s still-forming planet. “The problem is that until now, most of these planet candidates could just have been features in the disc.”

The discovery of PDS 70’s young companion is an exciting scientific result that has already merited further investigation. A second team, involving many of the same astronomers as the discovery team, including Keppler, has in the past months followed up the initial observations to investigate PDS 70’s fledgling planetary companion in more detail. They not only made the spectacularly clear image of the planet shown here, but were even able to obtain a spectrum of the planet. Analysis of this spectrum indicated that its atmosphere is cloudy.

PDS 70’s planetary companion has sculpted a transition disc — a protoplanetary disc with a giant “hole” in the centre. These inner gaps have been known about for decades and it has been speculated that they were produced by disc-planet interaction. Now we can see the planet for the first time.

“Keppler’s results give us a new window onto the complex and poorly-understood early stages of planetary evolution,” comments André Müller, leader of the second team to investigate the young planet. “We needed to observe a planet in a young star’s disc to really understand the processes behind planet formation.” By determining the planet’s atmospheric and physical properties, the astronomers are able to test theoretical models of planet formation.

This glimpse of the dust-shrouded birth of a planet was only possible thanks to the impressive technological capabilities of ESO’s SPHERE instrument, which studies exoplanets and discs around nearby stars using a technique known as high-contrast imaging — a challenging feat. Even when blocking the light from a star with a coronagraph, SPHERE still has to use cleverly devised observing strategies and data processing techniques to filter out the signal of the faint planetary companions around bright young stars [2] at multiple wavelengths and epochs.

Thomas Henning, director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and leader of the teams, summarises the scientific adventure: “After more than a decade of enormous efforts to build this high-tech machine, now SPHERE enables us to reap the harvest with the discovery of baby planets!”

---

Notes

[1] The disc and planet images and the planet’s spectrum have been captured in the course of the two survey programmes called SHINE (SpHere INfrared survey for Exoplanets) and DISK (sphere survey for circumstellar DISK). SHINE aims to image 600 young nearby stars in the near-infrared using SPHERE’s high contrast and high angular resolution to discover and characterise new exoplanets and planetary systems. DISK explores known, young planetary systems and their circumstellar discs to study the initial conditions of planetary formation and the evolution of planetary architectures.

[2] In order to tease out the weak signal of the planet next to the bright star, astronomers use a sophisticated method that benefits from the Earth's rotation. In this observing mode, SPHERE continuously takes images of the star over a period of several hours, while keeping the instrument as stable as possible. As a consequence, the planet appears to slowly rotate, changing its location on the image with respect to the stellar halo. Using elaborate numerical algorithms, the individual images are then combined in such a way that all parts of the image that appear not to move during the observation, such as the signal from the star itself, are filtered. This leaves only those that do apparently move — making the planet visible.

---

More Information

This research was presented in two papers, entitled “Discovery of a planetary-mass companion within the gap of the transition disk around PDS 70” and “Orbital and atmospheric characterization of the planet within the gap of the PDS 70 transition disk”, both to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The team behind the discovery paper is composed of  M. Keppler (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), M. Benisty (Univ. Grenoble, France and Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, Chile),  A. Müller (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), Th. Henning (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), R. van Boekel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), F. Cantalloube (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), C. Ginski (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands), R.G. van Holstein (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands), A.-L. Maire (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany),  A. Pohl (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), M. Samland (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), H. Avenhaus (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), J.-L. Baudino (Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK), A. Boccaletti (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, France), J. de Boer (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands), M. Bonnefoy (Univ. Grenoble, France), S. Desidera (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy),  M. Langlois (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Marseille, France and CRAL, UMR 5574, CNRS, Université de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France), C. Lazzoni (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), N. Pawellek (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), T. Stolker (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), A. Vigan (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Marseille, France), T. Birnstiel (University Observatory, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität München, Germany), W. Brandner(Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), G. Chauvin (Univ. Grenoble, France and Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, Chile), M. Feldt (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), M. Flock (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA and Kavli Institute For Theoretical Physics, University of California, USA), J. Girard(Univ. Grenoble, France and ESO, Chile), R. Gratton (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), J. Hagelberg (Univ. Grenoble, France), A. Isella (Rice University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, USA), M. Janson (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany and  Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, Sweden), A. Juhasz (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), J. Kemmer (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), Q. Kral (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France and Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), A.-M. Lagrange (Univ. Grenoble, France), R. Launhardt (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), G. Marleau (Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany) A. Matter (Université Côte d’Azur, OCA, CNRS, France), F. Ménard (Univ. Grenoble, France), J. Milli (ESO, Chile), P. Mollière (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands), C. Mordasini (Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern, Switzerland), J. Olofsson (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile, and Núcleo Milenio Formación Planetaria - NPF, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile), L. Pérez (Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy, Bonn, Germany and Universidad de Chile, Departamento de Astronomia, Chile), P. Pinilla (Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA), C. Pinte (Univ. Grenoble, France, UMI-FCA, CNRS/INSU, France (UMI 3386), and Dept. de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Chile, and  Monash Centre for Astrophysics (MoCA) and School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Australia), S. Quanz (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), T. Schmidt (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), S. Udry (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), Z. Wahhaj (ESO, Chile), J. Williams (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA), A. Zurlo (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France, Núcleo de Astronomía, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile), E. Buenzli (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), M. Cudel (Univ. Grenoble, France), R. Galicher (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), M. Kasper (ESO, Germany), J. Lannier (Univ. Grenoble, France), D. Mesa (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy and INCT, Universidad De Atacama, Copiapó, Chile), D. Mouillet (Univ. Grenoble, France), S. Peretti (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), C. Perrot (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France), G. Salter (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), E. Sissa (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), F. Wildi (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), L. Abe (Université Côte d’Azur, OCA, CNRS, Lagrange, France), J. Antichi (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy), J.-C. Augereau (Univ. Grenoble, France), P. Baudoz (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France), J.-L. Beuzit (Univ. Grenoble, France), P. Blanchard (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), S. S. Brems (Landessternwarte Königstuhl, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Germany),  M. Carle (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), A. Cheetham (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), A. Costille (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), A. Delboulbé (Univ. Grenoble, France), C. Dominik (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, The Netherlands), P. Feautrier (Univ. Grenoble, France), L. Gluck (Univ. Grenoble, France), D. Gisler (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Y. Magnard (Univ. Grenoble, France), D. Maurel (Univ. Grenoble, France), M. Meyer (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), T. Moulin (Univ. Grenoble, France), T. Buey (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), A. Baruffolo (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), A. Bazzon (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), V. De Caprio (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Italy), M. Carbillet (Université Côte d’Azur, OCA, CNRS, Lagrange, France), E. Cascone (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Italy), R. Claudi (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), K. Dohlen (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), D. Fantinel (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), T. Fusco (ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), France), E. Giro (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), C. Gry (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), N. Hubin (ESO, Germany), E. Hugot (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), M. Jaquet (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), D. Le Mignant (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), M. Llored (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), O. Möller-Nilsson (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), F. Madec (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), P. Martinez (Université Côte d’Azur, OCA, CNRS, Lagrange, France), L. Mugnier (ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), France), A. Origné (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), P. Puget (Univ. Grenoble, France), D. Perret (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), J. Pragt (NOVA Optical Infrared Instrumentation Group, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands), F. Rigal (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, The Netherlands), R. Roelfsema (NOVA Optical Infrared Instrumentation Group, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands), A. Pavlov (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), C. Petit (ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), France), G. Rousset (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), J. Ramos (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), P. Rabou (Univ. Grenoble, France), S. Rochat (Univ. Grenoble, France), A. Roux (Univ. Grenoble, France), B. Salasnich (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy),C. Soenke (ESO, Germany), E. Stadler (Univ. Grenoble, France), J.-F. Sauvage (ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), France), M. Suarez ( INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy), A. Sevin (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), M. Turatto (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), L. Weber (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland).

The team behind the characterisation paper consisted of A. Müller (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), M. Keppler (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), Th. Henning (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), M. Samland (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), G. Chauvin (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France and Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, CNRS/INSU Universidad de Chile, Chile), H. Beust (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), A.-L. Maire (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), K. Molaverdikhani (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), R. van Boekel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany),  M. Benisty (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France and Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, CNRS/INSU Universidad de Chile, Chile), A. Boccaletti (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), M. Bonnefoy (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), F. Cantalloube (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), B. Charnay (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), J.-L. Baudino (Department of Physics, University of Oxford, UK), M. Gennaro (Space Telescope Science Institute, USA), Z. C. Long (Space Telescope Science Institute, USA), A. Cheetham (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), S. Desidera (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), M. Feldt (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), T. Fusco (DOTA, ONERA, Université Paris Saclay, and Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM Marseille, France), J. Girard (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France and Space Telescope Science Institute, USA), R. Gratton (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), J. Hagelberg (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), M. Janson (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany and Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, Sweden),  A.-M. Lagrange (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), M. Langlois (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Marseille, France and CRAL, UMR 5574, CNRS, Université de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France), C. Lazzoni (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), R. Ligi (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Italy), F. Ménard (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), D. Mesa (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy and INCT, Universidad De Atacama, Copiapó, Atacama, Chile), M. Meyer (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, USA), P. Mollière (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, the Netherlands), C. Mordasini (Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern, Switzerland), T. Moulin (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), A. Pavlov (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), N. Pawellek (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany and Konkoly Observatory, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary), S. Quanz (Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), J. Ramos (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), D. Rouan (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, France), E. Sissa (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy),  E. Stadler (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France), A. Vigan (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France), Z. Wahhaj (ESO, Chile), L. Weber (Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, Switzerland), A. Zurlo (Núcleo de Astronomía, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile).

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

• Research papers:
  • Keppler et al.
  • Müller et al.
• Photos of the VLT

---

Contacts:

Miriam Keppler
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 6221 528 203
Email: keppler@mpia.de

André Müller
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 6221 528 227
Email: amueller@mpia.de

Thomas Henning
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 6221 528 200
Email: henning@mpia.de

Mariya Lyubenova
ESO Outreach Astronomer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6188
Email: mlyubeno@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

---