The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri from ALMA
Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NSF
Dr. Kenneth Hicks, Ohio University Professor of Physics, wrote a column on “Telescopes seek out clues of early solar system” in the Nov. 16 Columbus Dispatch.
Imagine that you could view our solar system as it was forming about 4.5 billion years ago. What would you see?
Dr. Kenneth Hicks
The conventional picture is of a swirling cloud of gas and dust that, over time, condensed into the sun and planets.
Although we can’t go back in time and see the formation of our own solar system, astronomers can use powerful new telescopes to search for infant solar systems called protoplanetary disks. The best-ever image of a protoplanetary disk, seen near the fledgling star called HL Tau, was released this month.
The image was made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, 66 high-precision antennas located on a high plateau in northern Chile. The facility started full-scale operation in 2013.
The image has a bright spot in the center, where the new star is forming, with concentric dark circles where planets presumably have swept up the gas and dust as they orbit the new star. The HL Tau system is about 450 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Taurus.
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