Astronomers using ALMA saw a stellar flyby disrupt the protoplanetary disk around another star. What does it mean for planetary development?
When it comes to observing protoplanetary disks, the is probably the champion. ALMA was the first telescope to peer inside the almost inscrutable protoplanetary disks surrounding young stars and watch planets forming. ALMA advanced our understanding of the planet-forming process, though our knowledge of the entire process is still in its infancy.
This is the sharpest image ever taken by ALMA as of 2014— sharper than is routinely achieved in visible light with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. These new ALMA observations reveal substructures within the disc that have never been seen before and even display the possible positions of planets forming in the dark patches within the system.
Astronomers know more about these stellar fly-bys from simulations than we do from observations. Researchers have only observed a few of them because they’re difficult to see. According to lead author Dong, it’s like trying to watch lightning strike a tree. Solitary stars like our Sun are not the norm. Most stars are in binary pairs or even in triplets or quadruplets. In those systems, disk disruptions aren’t rare. But it’s frequently the companion stars that disrupt the disks, not interlopers. This makes Z CMa stand out.
What does a stellar flyby mean for planetary formation at such an early stage as in Z CMa? What are the long-term effects? “So I guess in a protoplanetary disk, a flyby event may cause material to mix, i.e., pieces of material could run into each other after a flyby, and they wouldn’t have a chance to meet if the disk had not been perturbed. This could be good in forming objects or growing them to larger sizes.”
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