A groundbreaking discovery by astronomers reveals a rotating disk around a high-mass star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, offering new insights into star formation in different galactic environments.
An international team of astronomers has reported the first detection of a rotating disc structure around a forming high-mass star outside of our Milky Way in another galaxy.
The disc surrounds a young massive star located in a stellar nursery called N180, residing in a neighboring dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.
At a distance of 163,000 light-years from Earth, this is the most distant disc around a massive star ever to be directly detected.
Groundbreaking Observations With ALMA
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, researchers observed motions in gas around a young stellar object in the Large Magellanic Cloud consistent with a Keplerian accretion disc – the kind that feeds the growth of stars through infalling material.
Led by Durham University and including astronomers at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, the team’s findings have been published in the journal Nature.
As matter is pulled towards a growing star, it cannot fall directly onto it; instead, it flattens into a spinning disc around the star. Closer to the center, the disc rotates faster, and this difference in speed is the smoking gun that shows astronomers an accretion disc is present.
Insights From the Lead Researcher
Lead author of the study, Dr. Anna McLeod from the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Durham University said: “When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data, I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc; it was a special moment.
“We know discs are vital to forming stars and planets in our galaxy, and here, for the first time, we’re seeing direct evidence for this in another galaxy.
“We are in an era of rapid technological advancement when it comes to astronomical facilities.
“Being able to study how stars form at such incredible distances and in a different galaxy is very exciting.”
Characteristics and Implications of the Discovery
Massive stars, like the one observed here, form much more quickly and live far shorter lives than low-mass stars like our Sun.
In our galaxy, these massive stars are notoriously challenging to observe and are often obscured from view by the dusty material from which they form at the time a disc is shaping around them.
Unlike similar circumstellar disks in the Milky Way, this system is optically visible, likely due to the lower dust and metal content of its surrounding environment. This gives astronomers a peek into the dynamics of accretion that are typically hidden behind veils of gas and dust.
Analysis of the disc suggests an inner Keplerian region transitioning to infalling material at larger distances from the central star. The star is estimated to be around 15 times the mass of our Sun.
While bearing many familiar characteristics of Milky Way discs, some intriguing differences also emerge.
The low metal content typical of the LMC seems to make the disc more stable against fragmentation.
The successful detection of this extragalactic circumstellar disc boosts prospects for finding more such systems with ALMA and the upcoming Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).
Studying star and disc formation across different galactic environments will help complete our understanding of stellar origins.
Explore Further: Astronomers Uncover a Planet-Forming Disc in Another Galaxy
Using ALMA, astronomers have for the first time found a disc around a young star outside our own galaxy. This video summarizes the discovery. Credit: ESO
Reference: “A probable Keplerian disk feeding an optically revealed massive young star” by Anna F. McLeod, Pamela D. Klaassen, Megan Reiter, Jonathan Henshaw, Rolf Kuiper and Adam Ginsburg, 29 November 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06790-2
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3 Comments
Nice Artwork…It’s very science fiction imagery suitable for star trek or TV… not reality based but that’s not required for funding is it? the God’s eye view is always default isn’t it? Is it completely AI computer generated, or does a paid human help spit it out on his intel?
The accompanying artwork is meant to draw readers, not least by explaining the telescopes image data. And it has nothing directly to do with funding science (but the science site) however common conspiracy theories are used to impugn instead of appreciate science and the facts of nature.
Compare the artwork with “the image at the center [that] shows the jets that accompany it. The top part of the jet is aimed slightly towards us and thus blueshifted; the bottom one is receding from us and thus redshifted. Observations from ALMA, right, then revealed the rotating disc around the star, similarly with sides moving towards and away from us. Credit: ESO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. McLeod et al.” It may be a bit hard for those not specifically introduced to protoplanetary disks before to understand that they are looking at a disk.
Speaking of hard to understand, what is “the God’s eye view”!? If you – for some reason that eludes other readers – introduce your personal superstition you may want to explain what it means. Especially here since astronomy is related to the cosmology that killed off superstitious magic as responsible for the universe in 2018. Repeated Planck observations showed that it is beyond reasonable doubt an entirely natural process of space expansion that forms the universe.
Well, that was a welcome result!
I remember the jet discovery, but finding a disk is iffy: “Unlike similar circumstellar disks in the Milky Way, this system is optically visible, likely due to the lower dust and metal content of its surrounding environment.”
Correlated, and interestingly, by the low metal content the disk is heated to stability. “At lower metallicities, stars yield a higher number of photons in the extreme ultraviolet part of the spectrum. Owing to less efficient cooling, the temperature of the surrounding gas is higher. … internal irradiation is probably responsible for maintaining a high disk temperature by stabilizing it against fragmentation.”