ALMA Shows How Young Stars and Planets Grow Simultaneously
Astronomers have used the ALMA telescope in Chile to get their first glimpse of a fascinating stage of star formation in which planets forming around a young star are helping the star itself continue to grow, resolving a longstanding mystery. The young system, about 450 light-years from Earth, is revealing its complex gravitational dance to the ever-sharpening vision of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
Comments:
The article says:<br><br>>>Next, ALMA revealed streamers of dense gas (HCO+, or Formyl ion) crossing through the gap, bringing material from the outer portion of the disk, near and onto the planets, and into the disk's inner portion, closer to the star than where planets probably are forming. These streamers, the scientists say, probably are caused by the gravitational pull of the young planets.<<<br><br>As I've done so much reading on the electrical theory of star formation by Hannes Alfven and others, I would like to note a detail here.<br><br>The existence of streamers fits perfectly with Alfven's theory. Streamers are most likely indicative that the "hot gas", which is really plasma, is doing what plasma does best, viz., conduct electric current that creates a magnetic field which squeezes the plasma into filaments.<br><br>Why would gravity from an orbiting planet create a streamer? Even if the streamer extended from the outer disk to the planet, why would the streamer extend from the planet to the star itself?<br><br>Joe
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