Submillimeter interferometry isolates a circumplanetary accretion reservoir with enough mass to forge three major Galilean-class exomoons around a newly born gas giant.
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Submillimeter interferometry isolates a circumplanetary accretion reservoir with enough mass to forge three major Galilean-class exomoons around a newly born gas giant.
How do moons form around giant planets? Astronomers now have direct observational proof. Utilizing ALMA’s longest baseline configuration, researchers have cleanly resolved a circumplanetary disk of gas and dust encircling the young gas giant PDS 70c, located 370 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
Catching Satellite Genesis in Real Time
The system, barely 5 million years old, hosts two nascent giant planets clearing wide orbital gaps within their parent star’s transition disk. ALMA’s continuum observations detected dust thermal emission localized specifically within the gravitational sphere of influence (Hill sphere) of planet c.
Mass Estimates and Evolutionary Dynamics
Radiative transfer modeling indicates the circumplanetary disk spans approximately 1.2 astronomical units in diameter and possesses a total dust mass equivalent to approximately three times the mass of Earth’s Moon. The discovery provides the premier empirical benchmark for theoretical models of moon formation and giant planet accretion physics.
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