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A team of astronomers, led by University of Warwick in collaboration with researchers at MIT and McMaster, have developed a novel method to use the properties of dust rings around stars to estimate the masses of newborn planets. Published in The Astrophysical Journal, this research offers astronomers a new way to find and characterise planets that are too deeply embedded in their birth environment to be seen directly.
Swirling disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars are the environments in which planets form. New powerful telescopes, such as ALMA, have revealed that many of these protoplanetary disks contain striking ring-shaped structures. These have long been suspected to be clues to the planets potentially orbiting within the disks, but until now robust methods to interpret them have proved elusive.
"These bright rings are not just beautiful structures - they are essentially planetary fingerprints," said lead author, Amena Faruqi, PhD student, Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, University of Warwick. "We’ve long understood that the rings could be created from concentrated dust that piles up just beyond the orbit of young, embedded planets, but we’ve been so far unable to link features of these rings to planet masses.
