Researchers Detected ‘Moon-Forming’ Disc Around Exoplanets

For the first time, scientists and researchers have recognized a ring of gases and dust spinning around a planet outside of the solar system, which can be regarded as a discovery that could help in revealing how planets and Moon are made, according to a study on Thursday.The disc surrounding an exoplanet has dubbed PDS 70c, one of 2 gas giants alike in size and mass to the planet Jupiter that orbit the star PDS 70, closely 400 light-years away from the solar system.

The astronomers from the European Southern Observatory had discovered the PDS 70c in the year 2019 using their Very Large Telescope. Those observations were combined with the high-resolution images from the ALMA telescope in Chile and allowed them to conclude that the PDS 70c’s disk holds the material that will allow the Moon to formulate around the planet to the study, which was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers have known since the year 2006 that a huge ring of substances encircles the star PDS 70. Still, the limitations on the observational apparatus only allowed them to know that the existence of a planet between the star and the ring.

Miriam Keppler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute and co-author of the study, had discovered the star PDS 70b in 2018.The material neighboring the PDS 70c star is enough to form the Moon three times over. Jupiter, which is a much older planet, has four Moon and dozens of other smaller satellites.