How a baby planet drinks gas: a new discovery ⚡ экспресс
The star AB Aurigae has a baby planet, AB Aur b. Its glow resembles falling water: part of the light 'retreats,' part 'rushes in.' This pattern—like a whirlpool—suggests that the planet might be sucking in gas from its cosmic 'nursery.' This is only the second such case in the world and the first with this kind of light signature. The mystery is: what's actually making the planet shine like this?
The forming exoplanet AB Aur b behaves like a hungry baby: it greedily sucks in gas from the surrounding cosmic cloud. Astronomers using the VLT telescope caught it in the act in the AB Aurigae star system. They studied the light from heated hydrogen near the planet, spreading it into colors. The picture turned out to be double: part of the light seems to "run away" from us, part is absorbed by the cloud of infalling material. In spectroscopy, such a pattern is called a reverse P Cygni profile: cold gas rapidly falls onto a hot body. Previously, this was only seen around stars, but now—around a planet embryo. The infall speed is 100 kilometers per second: such a flow would take just an hour to travel from Earth to the Moon. This discovery provides a live snapshot of the birth of gas giants like Jupiter and will help refine how often systems like our Solar System emerge in the Universe.
🎯 In an hour, the falling gas covers the distance from Earth to the Moon.