What’s in a nebula’s name?

Gum 40, IC2872, Running Chicken Nebula
Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team.

Do you see a playful fox, a skulking hyena or… a chicken’s head? Located in the Centaurus constellation, this gas cloud is part of the giant Running Chicken Nebula. Some people see it as the head of the chicken, others see the chicken’s rear end.

But as much as scientists love fun names for nebulae, they are often not very conducive to clear communication in an international field like astronomy. That is why this nebula is formally known by two names that sound, well… a little less funky.

In 1955, Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum made an inventory of 84 emission nebulae in the southern sky: the Gum catalog. This one is known, quite dryly, as Gum 40. Long before Gum, in 1888, Danish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer had already compiled the ambitious New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC), an index of 7840 astronomical objects such as galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae like this one. Dreyer later added two Index Catalogues (IC) to his work, describing another 5386 celestial objects. This nebula was labelled IC 2872. The NGC is still used today: it got its most recent update in 2019, with 13 957 new objects.

This image of IC 2872 — or Gum 40, the chicken head or whatever nickname you might wish to give it — was captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. As telescopes and instruments keep getting better, more and more deep-sky objects are discovered, so the lists and catalogues will never be complete. But that shouldn't keep us from trying to compile them — or making up fun nicknames, right?

Source: ESO/potw

---

Channelling light from starbursts

NGC 5253

An oval-shaped galaxy, made up of many point-like stars. It is softly lit from the centre, brightest and slightly blue at the very centre and fading to darkness at the edges. Surrounding the galaxy’s core are reddish clouds of gas and dust, most around or behind the core, but a few wisps are in front of it and block some light. Some faraway galaxies and two foreground stars can be seen around the galaxyCredit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Zezas, D. Calzetti

The focus of this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week is the blue compact dwarf galaxy NGC 5253, located in the constellation Centaurus around 11 million light-years from Earth. This new image combines data taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), using its Wide Field Channel, and with the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). As a bonus for this Picture of the Week, there is also a second new image made using data from the High Resolution Channel (HRC) of ACS, a sub-instrument only operational for a few years that was optimised for detailed studies of environments dense with stars.

What has interested astronomers so much about this galaxy that three of Hubble’s instruments were used to study it in depth over ten years? It turns out to lie at the focus of a few areas of research where Hubble’s capabilities are essential. Dwarf galaxies are considered important for understanding the evolution of both stars and galaxies through time, since they resemble ancient, distant galaxies. NGC 5253 is called both a 'starburst galaxy' and a 'blue compact dwarf': these names mean it is forming clusters of bright, massive stars at an exceptional rate. This Hubble image clearly shows the dense nebula which is being consumed to birth these stars, and which makes NGC 5253 a laboratory in which to investigate stellar composition, star formation and star clusters, all at once.

A tremendously high rate of star formation is a recipe for star clusters, but NGC 5253 goes beyond that: in a small region of the core, the star formation is so intense that the galaxy contains no fewer than three 'super star clusters' (SSCs). SSCs are very bright, populous and massive open clusters which are believed to evolve into globular clusters. Globular clusters themselves offer unique insights into how stars form and evolve, but their origins are poorly understood. Astronomers were therefore eager to make use of the HRC sub-instrument, with its superb resolution, to home in on these small, very dense clusters of stars.

Links

• NGC 5253 High Resolution Channel image of nucleus
• NGC 5253 galaxy collage
• Pan of NGC 5253

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

---

Does this exoplanet have a sibling sharing the same orbit?

PR Image eso2311a
A planet and its Trojan orbiting a star in the PDS 70 system (annotated)

PR Image eso2311b
A planet and its Trojan orbiting a star in the PDS 70 system

PR Image eso2311c
The dwarf star PDS 70 in the constellation Centaurus

PR Image eso2311d
Widefield image of the sky around PDS 70

---

Videos

PR Video eso2311a

Does this planet have a “sibling” sharing the same orbit? (ESOcast 263 Light) 

PR Video eso2311b

Zooming in on the PDS 70 system, host to planet PDS 70b and a possible Trojan 

PR Video eso2311c

Artist’s animation of Trojan debris clouds

---

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have found the possible ‘sibling’ of a planet orbiting a distant star. The team has detected a cloud of debris that might be sharing this planet’s orbit and which, they believe, could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. If confirmed, this discovery would be the strongest evidence yet that two exoplanets can share one orbit.

“Two decades ago it was predicted in theory that pairs of planets of similar mass may share the same orbit around their star, the so-called Trojan or co-orbital planets. For the first time, we have found evidence in favour of that idea,” says Olga Balsalobre-Ruza, a student at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain who led the paper published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Trojans, rocky bodies in the same orbit as a planet, are common in our own Solar System [1], the most famous example being the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter — more than 12 000 rocky bodies that are in the same orbit around the Sun as the gas giant. Astronomers have predicted that Trojans, in particular Trojan planets, could also exist around a star other than our Sun, but evidence for them is scant. “Exotrojans [Trojan planets outside the Solar System] have so far been like unicorns: they are allowed to exist by theory but no one has ever detected them,” says co-author Jorge Lillo-Box, a senior researcher at the Centre for Astrobiology.

Now, an international team of scientists have used ALMA, in which ESO is a partner, to find the strongest observational evidence yet that Trojan planets could exist — in the PDS 70 system. This young star is known to host two giant, Jupiter-like planets, PDS 70b and PDS 70c. By analysing archival ALMA observations of this system, the team spotted a cloud of debris at the location in PDS 70b’s orbit where Trojans are expected to exist.

Trojans occupy the so-called Lagrangian zones, two extended regions in a planet's orbit where the combined gravitational pull of the star and the planet can trap material. Studying these two regions of PDS 70b’s orbit, astronomers detected a faint signal from one of them, indicating that a cloud of debris with a mass up to roughly two times that of our Moon might reside there.

The team believes this cloud of debris could point to an existing Trojan world in this system, or a planet in the process of forming. “Who could imagine two worlds that share the duration of the year and the habitability conditions? Our work is the first evidence that this kind of world could exist,” says Balsalobre-Ruza. “We can imagine that a planet can share its orbit with thousands of asteroids as in the case of Jupiter, but it is mind blowing to me that planets could share the same orbit.”

“Our research is a first step to look for co-orbital planets very early in their formation,” says co-author Nuria Huélamo, a senior researcher at the Centre for Astrobiology. "It opens up new questions on the formation of Trojans, how they evolve and how frequent they are in different planetary systems,” adds Itziar De Gregorio-Monsalvo, ESO Head of the Office for Science in Chile, who also contributed to this research.

To fully confirm their detection, the team will need to wait until after 2026, when they will aim to use ALMA to see if both PDS 70b and its sibling cloud of debris move significantly along their orbit together around the star. “This would be a breakthrough in the exoplanetary field,” says Balsalobre-Ruza.

"The future of this topic is very exciting and we look forward to the extended ALMA capabilities, planned for 2030, which will dramatically improve the array’s ability to characterise Trojans in many other stars," concludes De Gregorio-Monsalvo.

---

Notes

[1] When asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit were first discovered, they were named after heroes of the Trojan war, giving rise to the name Trojans to refer to these objects.

---

More information

This research was presented in a paper to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202346493).

The team is composed of O. Balsalobre-Ruza (Centro de Astrobiología [CAB], CSIC-INTA, Spain), I. De Gregorio-Monsalvo (European Southern Observatory [ESO], Chile), J. Lillo-Box (CAB), N. Huélamo (CAB), Á. Ribas (Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK), M. Benisty (Laboratoire Lagrange, Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, France and Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, France), J. Bae (Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, USA), S. Facchini (Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy), and R. Teague (Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, 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’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of 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 National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan 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.

---

Links

• Research paper
• Photos of ALMA
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

---

Contacts:

Olga Balsalobre-Ruza
PhD student at Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA)
Madrid, Spain
Tel: +34 918131531
Email: obalsalobre@cab.inta-csic.es

Itziar De Gregorio-Monsalvo
ESO Head of the Office for Science Chile
Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56 (2) 2463 3000
Email: idegrego@eso.org

Jorge Lillo-Box
Researcher at Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA)
Madrid, Spain
Tel: + 34 918131309
Email: jorge.lillo@cab.inta-csic.es

Nuria Huélamo Bautista
Researcher at Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA)
Madrid, Spain
Tel: +34 918131530
Email: nhuelamo@cab.inta-csic.es

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

Source: ESO/News

---

ESO telescope images planet around most massive star pair to date

PR Image eso2118a

Image of the most massive planet-hosting star pair observed to date

 

PR Image eso2118b

Image of the most massive planet-hosting star pair observed to date (with annotations)

 

PR Image eso2118c

Artist impression showing b Centauri and its giant planet b Centauri b

 

PR Image eso2118d

Location of b Centauri in the constellation of Centaurus

---

Videos

PR Video eso2118a

Surprise planet found around extreme star pair (ESOcast 247 Light) 

 

PR Video eso2118b

A “fly to” b Centauri

---

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot — until now.

“Finding a planet around b Centauri was very exciting since it completely changes the picture about massive stars as planet hosts,” explains Markus Janson, an astronomer at Stockholm University, Sweden and first author of the new study published online today in Nature.

Located approximately 325 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, the b Centauri two-star system (also known as HIP 71865) has at least six times the mass of the Sun, making it by far the most massive system around which a planet has been confirmed. Until now, no planets had been spotted around a star more than three times as massive as the Sun.

Most massive stars are also very hot, and this system is no exception: its main star is a so-called B-type star that is over three times as hot as the Sun. Owing to its intense temperature, it emits large amounts of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.  

The large mass and the heat from this type of star have a strong impact on the surrounding gas, that should work against planet formation. In particular, the hotter a star is, the more high-energy radiation it produces, which causes the surrounding material to evaporate faster. “B-type stars are generally considered

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot — until now.

“Finding a planet around b Centauri was very exciting since it completely changes the picture about massive stars as planet hosts,” explains Markus Janson, an astronomer at Stockholm University, Sweden and first author of the new study published online today in Nature.

Located approximately 325 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, the b Centauri two-star system (also known as HIP 71865) has at least six times the mass of the Sun, making it by far the most massive system around which a planet has been confirmed. Until now, no planets had been spotted around a star more than three times as massive as the Sun.

Most massive stars are also very hot, and this system is no exception: its main star is a so-called B-type star that is over three times as hot as the Sun. Owing to its intense temperature, it emits large amounts of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.  

The large mass and the heat from this type of star have a strong impact on the surrounding gas, that should work against planet formation. In particular, the hotter a star is, the more high-energy radiation it produces, which causes the surrounding material to evaporate faster. “B-type stars are generally considered as quite destructive and dangerous environments, so it was believed that it should be exceedingly difficult to form large planets around them,” Janson says.

But the new discovery shows planets can in fact form in such severe star systems. “The planet in b Centauri is an alien world in an environment that is completely different from what we experience here on Earth and in our Solar System,” explains co-author Gayathri Viswanath, a PhD student at Stockholm University. “It’s a harsh environment, dominated by extreme radiation, where everything is on a gigantic scale: the stars are bigger, the planet is bigger, the distances are bigger.”

Indeed, the planet discovered, named b Centauri (AB)b or b Centauri b, is also extreme. It is 10 times as massive as Jupiter, making it one of the most massive planets ever found. Moreover, it moves around the star system in one of the widest orbits yet discovered, at a distance a staggering 100 times greater than the distance of Jupiter from the Sun. This large distance from the central pair of stars could be key to the planet’s survival.

These results were made possible thanks to the sophisticated Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) mounted on ESO’s VLT in Chile. SPHERE has successfully imaged several planets orbiting stars other than the Sun before, including taking the first ever-image of two planets orbiting a Sun-like star.

However, SPHERE was not the first instrument to image this planet. As part of their study, the team looked into archival data on the b Centauri system and discovered that the planet had actually been imaged more than 20 years ago by the ESO 3.6-m telescope, though it was not recognised as a planet at the time.

With ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), due to start observations later this decade, and with upgrades to the VLT, astronomers may be able to unveil more about this planet’s formation and features. “It will be an intriguing task to try to figure out how it might have formed, which is a mystery at the moment,” concludes Janson.

---

More Information

This research was presented in a paper tilted "A wide-orbit giant planet in the high-mass b Centauri binary system" to appear in Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04124-8).

The team is composed of Markus Janson (Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, Sweden [SU]), Raffaele Gratton (INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy [INAF-Padova]), Laetitia Rodet (Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, USA), Arthur Vigan (Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CNES, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France [LAM]), Mickaël Bonnefoy (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Institute for Planetary sciences and Astrophysics, France [IPAG] and LAM), Philippe Delorme (IPAG), Eric E. Mamajek (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA [JPL]), Sabine Reffert (Landessternwarte, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Germany [ZAH]), Lukas Stock (ZAH and IPAG), Gabriel-Dominique Marleau (Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen, Germany; Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern, Switzerland [UNIBE]; Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany), Maud Langlois (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon [CRAL], CNRS, Université Lyon, France), Gaël Chauvin (Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, CNRS/INSU and Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, and Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics, Grenoble, France), Silvano Desidera (INAF-Padova), Simon Ringqvist (SU), Lucio Mayer (Center for Theoretical Physics and Cosmology, Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland [CTAC]), Gayathri Viswanath (SU), Vito Squicciarini (INAF-Padova, Department of Physics and Astronomy “Galileo Galilei”, University of Padova, Italy), Michael R. Meyer (Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, USA), Matthias Samland (SU and MPIA), Simon Petrus (IPAG), Ravit Helled (CTAC), Matthew A. Kenworthy (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Netherlands), Sascha P. Quanz (ETH Zurich, Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Switzerland [ETH Zurich]), Beth Biller (Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, University of Edinburgh, UK), Thomas Henning (MPIA), Dino Mesa (INAF-Padova), Natalia Engler (ETH Zurich), Joseph C. Carson (College of Charleston, Department of Physics & Astronomy, USA).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration in astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, 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’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates APEX and ALMA on Chajnantor, two facilities that observe the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

---

Links

• Research paper
• Photos of the VLT
• Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

---

Contacts:

Markus Janson
Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University
Stockholm, Sweden
Tel: +46 8-553 785 48
Email: markus.janson@astro.su.se

Gayathri Viswanath
Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University
Stockholm, Sweden
Email: gayathri.viswanath@astro.su.se

Matthias Samland
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Heidelberg, Germany
Email: samland@mpia.de

Gaël Chauvin
Unidad Mixta Internacional Franco-Chilena de Astronomía, Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, and Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble
Santiago/Grenoble, Chile/France
Email: gael.chauvin@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Raffaele Gratton
INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
Padova, Italy
Tel: +39 049 8293442
Email: raffaele.gratton@inaf.it

Sascha Quanz
ETH Zurich, Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Zurich, Switzerland
Tel: +39 049 8293442
Email: sascha.quanz@phys.ethz.ch

Beth Biller
Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
Email: bb@roe.ac.uk

Matthew Kenworthy
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University
Leiden, Netherlands
Tel: +31 64 172 0331
Email: kenworthy@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

 Source: ESO/News

---