Using the tools, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, an international team of astronomers tested in practice a new method of obtaining images of the emerging exoplanets. The work of scientists published in The Astronomical Journal.
PDS 70 is the first known mnogoplodnaya system in which the astronomers were able to observe the process of birth of planets. The first direct image of one of its celestial bodies, PDS 70b, was done in 2018, and then astronomers have identified his brother, PDS 70c, with a few new pictures taken at different wavelengths in 2019. These two protoplanet, having a size of more than Jupiter, scientists have discovered using the Very Large Telescope of the European southern Observatory (VLT).
“there was some confusion when we first got images of two protoplanets in the system, says the study’s lead author, an employee of the California Institute of technology Jason van. — Planets formed from the disk of dust and gas surrounding a newborn star. Protoplanet attracts this material, because that creates a kind of smokescreen, which does not allow to distinguish the image of dusty gaseous disk of a developing planet.”
To solve this problem, astrophysicists have developed a method of data analysis which allows to separate the signals emanating from the circumstellar disc and protoplanet. To obtain the necessary data, the researchers removed the PDS 70 using the camera near infrared at the Keck II telescope. Located on the device new infrared sensor allowed us to obtain more accurate measurements in the monitoring system.
As a result, the authors obtained a clear picture of the system under study and were able with high accuracy to separate the two protoplanet from each other and from gas and dust disk surrounding the star. The scientists also measured the important spectral characteristics of the two planets and found evidence of previously unknown details of the stellar system.
